A Perfect Mate
by lucideye
Summary: Brains or beauty? Data faces the age-old dilemma. A little chess, a little sex, a little language and a little Freud. Read and review please.
1. Perfect Mate

_The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons._

_My thanks to those readers who have sent me useful suggestions which led me to revise the first four chapters. So if you only read my first version, please start here…._

  
_If you thought Lt Comm. Data had an extra spring in his step in the last episode of the first season of ST:TNG, this story is for you.  
We begin just before the ST:TNG episode called Conspiracy and we continue after it, before the episode titled The Neutral Zone._  
  
**A perfect mate**

**By lucideye**

  
  
Chapter 1: Blindfold chess

  
  
"Are you absolutely sure you wouldn't like to take that move back, Lt Commander?"

  
  
There was a stunned silence in the crowded little recreation room on a lower deck of the Starship Enterprise. All heads swivelled towards the untidily dressed female civilian. The woman herself gave an anxious, green-eyed glance round at the astonished faces, swallowed hard and leant towards the senior Starfleet officer whose back was turned to her.

  
  
He was triply inscrutable. Firstly, Zsuza's only view of him was of the back of his close-fitting green and black Starfleet uniform, his smooth black hair and a neck of an unnatural, but not unpleasing white-gold colour. Secondly, he was wearing a blindfold around his eyes; one of Counsellor Troi's extravagantly hued silk scarves in fact, tied in a neat knot at the back of the head. The ends of the scarf trailed incongruously down his back in rainbow-coloured wings. Thirdly, being an android, Lt Commander Data sometimes omitted to use facial expressions altogether if he saw no point in doing so.

 (How does he keep that hair so damned neat!) was the thought that passed across Zsuza's mind as she repeated, "I can let you take that move back, Sir."  
  
"That will not be necessary," the android replied, rather coldly, Zsuza thought. She shrugged, tucked another strand of unruly auburn hair behind her ear and looked down at the chessboard again. Casting her expert eye round the board, once again she could hardly believe her luck.

  
  
"Rook to H4," Zsuza called out, moving her piece and trying hard to keep her voice steady. There was a ripple of applause from those few crew members who knew immediately what she had done - and several baffled "Why did she do that?" noises from those who did not, mostly the lads from Security who weren't big on chess.  
  
In the instant Zsuza made her move, she saw the neat, suspiciously shapely shoulders (do androids wear shoulder pads?) actually slump slightly. And she heard, or thought she heard, something she did not expect: from behind the blindfold there came the barely audible, but unmistakeable sound of the android's voice saying: "Ah."

Aloud he said in his usual, bright tone, "Black resigns." Spinning his chair round swiftly to face his opponent, Data whipped the scarf from his eyes - his hair remained as smooth and glossy as ever - and held out his hand to Zsuza for the traditional handshake that always ends a chess game. There was more applause and most of the spectators began to move away as the chess addicts hunched round the board to analyse the endgame.

"There was no way he could get out of that," crowed the noisiest of the ship's "chess nuts", "it was going to be a perfect mate in another six moves. A perfect mate. You didn't see that coming, did you, Commander Data?"

"You're quite a player, Doctor Androva," said the ship's second noisiest chess nut, thudding Zsuza on the back. "Data's the hottest chess computer we have on board."

"The human mind is capable of beating an artificial intelligence at chess more often than one would think," interjected the android evenly. "Whereas the game is essentially one involving strategic and mathematical skill, the greatest chess players have always indicated that they also used a degree of instinct: or perhaps, more accurately, the ability to select and process only the information which will be of use in a given situation. That is a skill I have always coveted, always try to emulate, but never will possess in quite the same way."

There was an awkward quiet, as so often happened when the android mentioned what he seemed to consider to be his own shortcomings. Zsuza looked down at the board and mechanically began analysing back through her game, as she had been drilled to do from the age of five. She was only a guest on the Enterprise, on a mission to search for archaeological material for her university; she had never played chess with an android before, and the pleasure of winning was not as thorough as she had expected it to be.

She had played many computers before and none of them had ever gallantly offered to play blindfold, nor had wrapped the blindfold around their own eyes with such elegance, nor did she know of any computer with such a distractingly well-proportioned rear view as Commander Data's.

And no computer she had ever encountered before could offer a firm yet gentle handshake quite such as the one she had just received from the pale, surprisingly warm hand.

Suddenly the android's closest friend, who had been standing nearby with a glass in his hand, broke into a gust of giggles and put a friendly arm around Zsuza's shoulders.

"You old fraud, Data," spluttered Geordi. "You know darned well that you select information as well as the next guy - as much as I do, in fact. It just never occurred to you that a new kid on the block would be a darned better chess player than you - and half way through that game, why, I declare you just got lazy. You didn't think she was seeing ahead any further than you. Now stop trying to get this young lady to feel all sorry for you, Pinocchio, and go get her a drink. She won fair and square."

 "But it was only a blindfold match," Zsuza said quickly. "An exhibition match rather than proper tournament conditions."

"Honey, the blindfold doesn't make any difference to Data," laughed Geordi. "Why, don't tell me he really did let you think that a little thing like not being able to see the board would handicap him? Sheesh! With his rating? Darn it, Data, you are getting sneaky in your old age."

"I am not programmed for sneakiness, snooping, or covert activity," answered the android in his usual even tone. "And since I was discovered twenty-six years, eight months, three days and thirteen point five hours ago on Omicron Theta, I do not believe that in human terms my age is very advanced."

Zsuza smiled at Geordi and took the glass of champagne that Commander Data had produced from the replicator. The moment he handed over the drink, he tapped his commbadge, spoke to it and turned for the door.

Zsuza slipped through the crowd and caught up with him just before he left the recreation lounge.

"Good game," she said.

"A good game indeed. I have to return to the bridge now," said Data briskly. "I hope we shall be able to play again before long?"

"Oh, yes please," said Zsuza, who never found it possible to refuse a chess game. "But first, sir, could you tell me something?"

The android tilted his head slightly, waiting for her question. Zsuza noticed for the first time how his nose was slightly tipped to one side; and also that he still held the coloured silk scarf in his hands, absent-mindedly running its soft chiffon folds between his long, pale, extraordinarily sensitive fingers. She noticed his expressive eyebrows and quirky, interesting mouth, and thought how clever Data's creator had been, to decide against making him look like a shop window dummy. She imagined running her fingers through the black hair to see if it would flop into his eyes; she wondered what those eyes would look like if they had been a normal colour.

"I played you blindfold," she said, "because you said you would have too much of an advantage without the blindfold. Yet now I realise that the blindfold makes no difference to you at all; I should have known that from the start, in fact I did suspect it. I know real chess players – I may be an amateur still, but I've lived all my life among men and women who can play chess in their heads, and several dozen games at a time. Wasn't it rather - well - to be frank, insulting to offer me the blindfold game?"

Data blinked.

"But I lost the game," he pointed out, reasonably.

"Are you sure you didn't let me win?"

Data's brow creased with concern, one of the few expressions he adopted with ease.

 "Dr Androva, I do not understand your query. I did not at any point in our pre-game conversation say I would have too much of an advantage without the blindfold," he said.

He continued with empty inscrutability: "You asked me to play. I offered you queen odds*. You refused, and then Counsellor Troi suggested the blindfold. She produced this scarf and so we played. I never affirmed that my advantage would be altered by the blindfold, but I theorized that your confidence might be increased if I did not see the board. Dr. Androva, it is clear to me that you are not entirely conversant with my specifications. I am incapable of telling an untruth."

Zsuza felt the blood rush to her face. "I am terribly, terribly sorry, Lieutenant Commander. I really didn't mean to - to offend you."

"You cannot offend my feelings. However, an offence to my Starfleet rank is very possible," he continued evenly. "I hope we shall play chess again soon. With no blindfold? Good. Please return this scarf to Counsellor Troi for me. Thank you."

 With a graceful, formal motion he handed her the scarf, turned on his heels and disappeared swiftly through the swishing doors.

Zsuza stood alone by the door, holding a glass of champagne in one hand, a borrowed silk scarf in the other.

 Was this not a magnificent start to her life on board the Enterprise? The ship's third officer, a unique android with an apparently limitless memory, had just lost a chess game to her and (like most chess playing males Zsuza had encountered) did not seem immensely pleased at the idea; in addition to which she had managed to be impertinent to him.

 These things happen in threes, she thought. Why was it always so hard for a woman like Zsuza to fit in socially?

As she walked back to the board, one of the chess nuts knocked her elbow and her champagne went flying. Ah, there goes number three, thought Zsuza sadly, looking at the champagne soaked silk scarf. Now I have ruined a piece of clothing belonging to the ship's respected and widely liked - and of course incredibly beautiful, blah blah blah - counsellor.

And Lt Commander Data had genuinely lost the game - hadn't he? If he lost on purpose, what good would it do him? One good thing about playing against an emotion-free android must surely be that he would not dream of throwing a game as a ploy to get you into bed – something Zsuza had encountered back home more than once. Or would he?

The counsellor was "in": her dark, liquid eyes immediately became solemn on seeing the tousled civilian female.

"I brought your scarf back."

"Thanks! Er - how did it get wet?"

 "Sorry. I got some champagne spilled on it. I'll get it cleaned if you like -"

"No problem. Who won the game?"

 "I did. At least, I think I did."

"You think you did?" The counsellor took another careful look at Zsuza, beckoned her into the room and motioned her to sit down.

 Zsuza sighed. She had been advised to tell the counsellor anything that was "on her mind" and she recognised the "tell me about it" signals. Obediently, she sat on the couch with the counsellor next to her, all womanly concern and liquid brown eyes. 

"How much do you know about chess etiquette?" Zsuza began.

Deanna's smile was bright and humorous. "You've got me there," she shrugged. "Of course I play a little, but I can't say I have hung around watching others play."

 "You probably know that Commander Data has a much higher rating than me - an ELO* rating of roughly 3,000 compared with my 2,747."

"That….sounds very high," Deanna said cautiously.

 "Chess is a sport where human beings just seem to get better and better. Galactic Grandmaster level was set at 3,000 at the turn of the last century.  I am a top-level club player, but my picture isn't up on anyone's wall. And if only I had the chance of meeting bigger opponents, I think I could do very well  - anyway, the difference in rating between me and Commander Data is really not significant. With me, so far?"

 "Yep," said Deanna. Zsuza liked the way she sat next to her on the sofa with her knees together and her hands clasped slightly primly on her lap. The other woman felt cosy and friendly, without getting too close.

"Well," she continued, "then your idea of the blindfold came up and the Lieutenant Commander accepted it. Now I realise that the blindfold made no difference to him at all - he has perfect visual recall. I might as well have been playing a chess computer wrapped in a sock for all the advantage it gave me. Even though I won the game, I have this feeling that I was being - how can I put this? - made fun of.."

 "I can feel your sense of confusion," said the counsellor. "And I'm sorry if I committed a breach of chess etiquette by offering my scarf." 

Zsuza snorted as though it was of no consequence and Deanna realised that for the brilliant young academic, the only intercourse which mattered in a chess room was the game. Yet when Deanna had ushered the other woman into her quarters, a flutter of something more intense had briefly wafted from Zsuza into the empath's sensory field.

 "For one thing, you can put the idea that Data was in some way mocking you by playing blindfold right out of your head. I don't think he is capable of making fun of anyone. As for your feelings, I can tell that you feel triumphant but you don't trust your victory."

 "OK, never mind the touchy-feely psychology," Zsuza almost snapped. "Whatever. The point is that I suspect Data of throwing me the game, somehow. I can't put my finger on it. But I think he saw the endgame I had envisioned perfectly well and decided to let me follow through, without taking the defensive action I half-expected him to take - and that's just not on, Counsellor Troi. I won't stand for it.

"I was the junior champion on the whole of Europa 4 for one year and the runner up two years in a row while I was in high school. OK, we are not a heavily populated planet but that still means something: remember that 90 per cent of the chess-playing culture of Earth has been settled on my planet for two hundred years. Our original Earth settlers came from places where chess was once as big a sport as soccer."

 Deanna tried to look fascinated, while wondering what soccer was. Something to do with socks? It seemed more important to Deanna that this planet's culture had produced a young woman who expected to meet trickery, subterfuge and double-dealing as the normal coinage of human relationships, and this made Deanna feel sad.

 "I may be still only an amateur,"  continued Zsuza, "But all through university I played at top club levels. I chose an academic career, as a scientific archaeologist, rather than try for Starfleet Academy because I knew that a Starfleet career would take me away completely from competitive chess; that's how serious I am about chess. If it weren't for my parents hating the idea, I would be a professional. I know I could cut it. I just know I could," she added, as much to herself as to the counsellor.

 "This isn't just about chess, is it?" said the counsellor carefully. "There is something else, isn't there?"

 Zsuza stood up. "Of course it is just about chess," she said quickly. "Chess is not about emotions and stuff, Counsellor. Chess is about winning; sometimes human players use a little psychological pressure on each other, but - an android? Of course, I am going to challenge him to another game. A five game match, blitz, speed or whatever."

 "I suggest you stop saying 'whatever'," said Deanna. "It sounds so hostile."

"Sorry. I'm used to holding my own in the chess cafes and tournaments on Europa 4. I'm not used to Starfleet manners. Back in New Vienna, we have a form of saying goodbye, you know, which roughly translates as 'please do not speak ill of me behind my back'. That should tell you something about us."

 Zsuza turned to go, then frowned. "By the way, is it OK for me to call Lieutenant Commander Data by his first name, if I am playing chess with him?"

 "I don't see why not."

 "So what is it?"

"What's what?"

 "His first name."

 "Good heavens, I have no idea. Actually, I don't think he really has one."

 "You mean whoever made him only gave him one name? Seems a bit mean. It's kind of like being a doll, or a toy. Or a pet. Sindy. Barbie. Spot. Data."

 Deanna's face clouded and Zsuza's heart sank - she had put her foot in it again.

 "I think having only one name is the least of his problems, Zsuza. Our Data is a fascinating person. And - he is a person, you know. But it takes a little time to get used to him, as we understand that he cannot feel any emotions, not….." - Deanna chose her words carefully - "not what we would call emotions. I never feel anything from him."

 "You're a Betazoid, aren't you? You can feel other people's emotions," said Zsuza.

 "Half-Betazoid. When I am on the bridge I feel waves of emotion coming from everyone around me. I feel the Captain's impatience and the way he argues with himself inside. I feel Commander Riker's ambition sometimes just bouncing off the walls. I feel Geordi's warmth and optimism, Worf's struggle with his private anger and his sense of honour….it's something I am used to, feeling these waves of emotion rippling around me all the time.

 "You know how Geordi sees with his VISOR? For him, the scene on the bridge is a kaleidoscope of electromagnetic fields. In fact, for him, Data always has a special aura which the rest of us are not aware of - I only found that out quite recently. Well, for me, when I walk into a room I feel feelings washing around me like currents of water. That's part of how I "see" a room of people.

 "But from Data I feel nothing. When I first walked onto the bridge of the Enterprise it felt like looking at a group portrait - but one with a big hole in it, a person-shaped hole, where someone had been cut out. If I am not actually looking at him with my _eyes_, I have to remind myself all the time that he is there with us."

 Deanna paused.

 "There was one time when I did feel something coming from him - it was after we had a peculiar virus on board."

 Zsuza remembered her briefing. "You mean the Tsiolkovsky virus?" Before she could stop herself, she began to giggle.

 "That's it. Yeah, I can imagine the stories that went around about that little adventure. It was all pretty embarrassing, and it probably sounds funny now, but actually it was very, very dangerous and we nearly were all killed. Anyway, just after we came out of that danger, we were all on the bridge and for the first time - and the last time, actually - I felt something coming from Data. It was so faint that I would not have noticed it but for the circumstances."

 Deanna broke off, realising she had said far too much to a relative stranger.

 "Sure you don't want me to get the scarf cleaned?" said Zsuza, who had rather lost interest in Deanna's reminiscences.

 "Oh that! Look, I've got loads of them - would you like it?" Deanna laughed.

 "Thank you, it's beautiful - I couldn't possibly..."

 "It's a present. A souvenir of your first week with us. Think of it as your first Enterprise chess trophy."

 As the young academic, now smiling again, left her room, Deanna thought again about that strange day. The effects of the Tsiolkovsky virus had been more powerful than she had realised: Her own memories were dominated by the delicious sensation of being swept up in Wil Riker's arms and carried all the way to sickbay like a child. What she could recall of the immediate aftermath of the outbreak was relatively hazy, which must indicate that the virus left some kind of after-effect.

 Someone - which of them was it? - had marched onto the bridge, walked up to Data and said something quite extraordinary - what was it? Deanna remembered the waves of tense emotion wafting by her - and it was then she felt that something, a different emotion, very faint but still an emotion, coming from a new source. Coming from a place that had never been a source of emotion before. Coming from Data.

 The feeling had been so faint that she would hardly have noticed it if it had come from anyone else; but to feel it coming from Data was as unexpected to Deanna as it would be for you or me to hear the microwave oven bid us good morning, so the empath noticed it. But could not identify it.

 Not for the first time, Deanna cursed herself for lacking the full Betazoid spectrum of telepathic abilities. She struggled to focus on that feeling and to put a name to it. Had it been merely mild confusion, surprise? A faint yearning….or was it  - pain?

(end of chapter one)

  


* * *

* Queen odds: when a player of superior strength plays without a queen to give a novice a better chance

§* ELO rating is the standard method of measuring chess playing strength.


	2. Loot

**A perfect mate**

  
  
_The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons. If you have stuck with me this far, thank you. _

  
  
Chapter 2: Loot 

  
  
"You play white this time," said Zsuza, straightening the polished wood pieces on the inlaid board. She liked being able to see her opponent's face properly; even though he maintained a blank, sometimes quizzical expression nearly all the time.

Damn it, he was as good as his ELO rating suggested. For the past three days, Zsuza had officially been deep in analysing some ancient twentieth and twenty-first century documentation, but since most of it was very boring, she was able to think out a whole series of chess games as she worked.

Data, on the other hand, had been working double shifts - there was some kind of nasty business going on involving parasitic crab-like beings that were taking over the top brass at Starfleet HQ, and the whole shebang had required the ship to return to Earth briefly. Zsuza was not very interested, but while Captain Picard was saving the universe, she had been able to take advantage of the stopover not only to hone up some dead sneaky ploys with which to ensnare the third officer's unsuspecting queen, but also to beam in a rather special something she had spotted in an antiquarian catalogue.

There was nowhere to put her new acquisition, as far as she could see, except in her cabin, which was not one of the larger ones on board - but she just couldn't say no to the chance to have it with her. And her cup of happiness was complete when, as the ship turned away from Earth, her toughest chess opponent on board had signalled that he had time for another game – more than one, if she so wished.

For the first game Zsuza had planned a completely different attack from her previous attempt, but it turned out to be one with which Data was very familiar, and after 36 moves Zsuza sighed, knocked over her king, forced a grin and stuck out her hand to meet the white-gold one for the second time. This time the slim, strong white-gold hand belonged to the victor, and the small pink one with bitten fingernails belonged to the vanquished.

"How long will you be with us, Dr Androva?" asked the android, as Zsuza began tracing back the endgame to see where she could have saved her game.

 "About a month, I think. It depends. (Pawn H4 here, don't you think? Rather than the old Kasparov variation I was using. No wait a minute. With that pin looming I could have tried H5 and then…..Bishop to H8!!) Yes, we've been looking at late twentieth century records and my university department thinks there might be some yummy loot for me out there. I do hope so. I am getting very bored of sifting through old stock exchange records looking for clues to economic development."

Data gave her one of his extra quizzical looks, tilting his chin and opening his gold-coloured eyes a little wider. It was impossible not to notice the smooth line of his throat when he did that- not to mention that tip-tilted nose.

Zsuza laughed.

"By 'loot' I just mean what you would call space junk, you know. For academics, a piece of space junk is the most wonderful treasure imaginable. (Now were you planning to castle on the Queen's side then? No, later. I see.) Actually I gave in to temptation while we were orbiting Earth the other day, and I got permission to beam up some things I've been longing to get my hands on. And as a chess player, it should interest you, too."

Data sat up alertly. "Doctor, I would very much like to see your…loot. Was that not a Speelman fork there? No, back three moves. There."

 "No, no, Commander. That's a standard Karpov twist."

"So it was. I was looking at it upside down."

Zsuza put down the chess pieces, which she had been moving round the board with expert speed, and looked sternly at him. Her auburn hair was, as usual after a chess game, escaping from the face-framing shape which was supposed to flatter her, and instead was falling persistently into her eyes. 

"Commander Data. You have total visual recall, more even than most chess players. You don't worry about seeing things 'upside down'."

"I do not, Doctor?" Was there the faintest hint of amusement in the cheerful, even voice?

"And blindfold chess is no disadvantage for you."

 "It is not, Doctor?"

 "Lt Commander, why do you keep pulling your punches for me? And - do you mind calling me Zsuza?."

 The android gave a funny, little, twisty, rueful grin.

 "Zsuza. It is a curious question you ask. Yes, as I admitted before, I have been tempted to experiment with little handicaps to my capabilities, simply to present a more….sporting chance. "

Zsuza was furious.

 "I am a brilliant club player. I could go professional any time I want, if my parents didn't go on at me about having a respectable career. I don't need you to handicap yourself. Commander Data, I must ask you to play chess with me properly."

 "I am confused. When I lost, you accused me of throwing the game. Now I have won, and you say I am not playing you properly."

 "Only in one game; and it took 36 moves. We continue."

 The fierce young woman sat down, pushed her hair back out of her eyes for the umpteenth time and began setting up the board again. Data watched her with enormous interest.

 "What about your offer to let me see your 'loot', Zsuza? I have to go back to the bridge in five hours."

"OK, let's play blitz this time. Fifteen minutes each. You are playing black."

 The android looked as near delighted as she had ever seen him. As Zsuza set the chess clock ticking, he leaned forward over the board gracefully; Zsuza had never seen his face so animated, so bright and unclouded, as the pieces swished around the board. This was pure chess: no computers, no artificial piece-moving apparatus - just two minds, a polished wood set and board and a two-faced clock.

 Half an hour later (Data won) they agreed that they could not possibly leave things there, so they played another game. This time Zsuza won. Data insisted that they play again and he won, but only on time. It was gloriously close. As Zsuza's flag fell, Data very nearly looked delighted.

 "Another game," Zsuza said immediately and began setting up the chess pieces.

 "Do you not become tired by competing with me?"

 "Commander Data, as a student I played blitz chess through the night many times. This is nothing to me - absolutely nothing."

 Data looked curiously at Zsuza and suddenly gave a start as his social programming kicked in. "I trust you do not feel you need to continue calling me by my rank. At least, not when we are playing chess."

 "OK, Data. One more game and then I really must take you to my cabin. I can't wait for you to see what I've got in there….you are going to just love it. But one more game first."

 "Would you not prefer to take a break?"

"Play."

 A look almost of disappointment crossed the android's face and Zsuza secretly congratulated herself on discovering his weakness: his vaunting curiosity. She won the next game and by a long way. Data quickly found himself skewered.

 "That is curious," said Data. "I cannot see why I lost that game. But may I see what you have in your cabin now? I still have a few hours before I am due on the main bridge."

 Almost laughing with triumph, Zsuza swept her chess set into its inlaid box and led the way to the turbolift. Never in her life did she feel so good as when she had won a game against a worthy opponent.

 As they stood in the turbolift waiting to arrive at her deck, she felt herself very bold, very brave and carefree. She leant across to the android and planted a light kiss on his white-gold cheek.

 "Thanks for the match," she said.

 He looked blankly at her, considered her for a moment and then planted a kiss of precisely the same duress on her pink cheek.

 "It was a pleasure," he answered evenly.

 Zsuza smiled, blushed furiously, looked down at her feet and back at Data, and hoped the sound of her thudding heart was not too audible. Did the android have superhuman hearing? She hoped not.

 As the lift doors opened, Data said, "Inquiry. Is a kiss on the cheek that the traditional way to end a chess match on your planet?"

Zsuza laughed out loud at the thought of the hairy, rarely-washed chess fanatics of her university team exchanging kisses instead of their usual curt handshakes.

"No, it's just a way of being friendly. Ta-da!" she cried as she opened her cabin door with a flourish, then felt foolish as Data peered in with his usual deadpan expression.

 "Ah, you have made a mistake, Zsuza. This is clearly a storeroom of some kind. It is full of storage boxes piled right up to the door. This room is not adapted for human accommodation. You have perhaps forgotten on which deck you are quartered."

 "No, it really is my quarters, believe me. My bed and stuff are behind the boxes, and what I want to show you is inside the boxes."

Data looked doubtfully at the excited young woman. 

"Inquiry. How do you get in and out of your accommodation?"

 "It's quite easy really. You just sort of squeeze past round this pile here." Handing him the chess set and taking a deep breath, Zsuza edged sideways round the three-crate-high stack of tuf-pak crates which blocked the doorway and began to squeeze herself through the gap between them and the wall. It was indeed a tight fit, especially as Zsuza was blessed with rather large breasts.

 "Stop!" said Data sharply. "You are in danger of hurting yourself! It is painful for a woman to have her breasts compressed in that fashion! Zsuza, if I push these crates forward and away from the door, will they damage anything on the other side?"

 Zsuza halted her wriggling progress, startled, her breasts flattened uncomfortably against the dusty packing case. "There's about thirty centimetres clearance between them and my bed," she said breathlessly.

 Without hesitating, Data put his shoulder to the topmost crate, his hip to the middle one in the pile and his foot to the bottom-most. As though pushing a well-oiled door, he slid the whole pile across the floor for ten centimetres.

 "It is against Starfleet regulations to have large objects blocking the door of your accommodation," he said a little sternly. "In the event of an emergency you could be seriously delayed. You could even get….stuck!"

 There really was very little left to see of the room besides the crates. The ugly grey boxes took up nearly all the available floor space between the bed and the door. To make more room, Zsuza had even thrown out the chairs, leaving a mere narrow tunnel round the edge of the room, and there was absolutely nowhere to sit but the bed.

 "By 'large objects' do you mean my breasts or my packing crates?" said Zsuza brightly as they squeezed sideways through the tunnel, narrowly avoiding tearing Data's exquisitely tailored uniform on the edge of a crate. 

It occurred to Data (though he was far too polite to vocalise the thought) that this procedure, repeated several times daily, probably explained Zsuza's usually dishevelled appearance. Her costume, which, by the dictates of that year's fashion on Europa 4, was a tight-fitting calf-length sheath dress in a deep blue, fastened by old-fashioned criss-cross lacing from the low neckline to the hem, was covered in dust and twisted around her body like a corkscrew by the time she emerged into the space near the bed.

He gave her a blank look. "The crates, of course. Your breasts are indeed larger than average; a 80D* cup, I would estimate. But they are not large enough to…"

"I'm sorry, Data, that was my feeble attempt at a joke. Now, you sit here."

 "On the bed?"

 "That's right. Well, there isn't anywhere else, is there? Now just take a look at this!"

As Zsuza excited opened the nearest crate, Data sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. His eyes fell on Deanna's silk chiffon scarf, which Zsuza had - typically - left lying on the floor, and a thoughtful expression passed over his gentle face.

 "Extraordinary," he said, quietly. "That scarf, a bed, a woman. Again."

"Sorry?" But without waiting for an answer, Zsuza extracted from her crate what she had been searching for and plonked it on Data's lap. He looked warily at the object.

"This is a book," he announced. "The wood-pulp based form in which literature, novels, poetry, history and indeed all transferable human knowledge was stored from around the second century CE when the bound manuscript form superseded the roll or scroll; written by hand until the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg (c1397-1468) and the most common form of knowledge storage until the end of the twenty-first century."

"Not just that." Zsuza's voice was trembling with excitement as she turned over the fragile pages of the dog-eared volume which was already depositing a thin layer of white-grey dust over Data's flawless uniform. "These crates contain the entire library of a twenty- first century European grandmaster called Alexei Zubinov."

 "The man responsible for banning artificial intelligence from competitive chess," said Data quickly, like the child who has his hand first up to answer the teacher's question.

 "That's the guy. I'm so glad you know about him. He wasn't really such a great player but he was an intellectual hub and of course a very significant influence in the whole chess world at that very important point in chess history….look at this, Data! It's fabulous! _Secrets of the Russian Grandmasters_. _Kasparov v Deep Blue_ - that was the first major battle between a human and a computer, you know, long before computers were banned from professional competitive chess."

 "Inquiry. If I wished to play top-level competitive chess - and I am speaking hypothetically - do you consider, as a semi-professional player yourself, would I be permitted to play against humans?"

 "I wouldn't like to say, Data. There is a very strong belief in chess that letting machines play humans is like entering a fork-lift truck in a weight- lifting contest, as one 21st century grandmaster famously put it. And I have to say it makes sense. Professional competitive chess is now almost a physical experience as much as a mental one – two organic sentients meeting face to face in tournament conditions with no back-up, no computer – just their own mental capacities. So….well, it depends on how you are classified, frankly."

 "I am a Starfleet officer; however it is true that my status as a sentient being has never been tested in a court of law. As yet."

 Data stood up, automatically dusting down the front of his uniform, and Zsuza could not help noticing as he did so that his body appeared - at least, as far as she could tell through the olive and black fabric - to be formed exactly like a normal man, including an intriguing bulge at the front of his trousers; she also noticed that his nipples must be sensitive to the slightly cooler temperature of her room, as they were standing erect under the uniform. Why would an android need nipples?

 "Well, Data, I'd certainly speak up for your being classified as a man," she said softly.

 He joined her in peering into the open crate and took out a couple more volumes, reading out the titles. "_Winning Endgames_. _Capablanca's Finest Games_. What is in the other crates?"

 "Books. Just books. I said this was the guy's whole chess library."

 Data looked astonished. "You mean that just one person's books would take up all this space? How would he have stored it all?"

 "They used shelves around their homes, kilometres of shelves sometimes. You can see them in the background of old "photographs". Storing books was notoriously dusty and space-consuming," explained Zsuza.

 "I can see how convenient our system is now," said Data, shaking his head. "All works of literature, art, history, philosophy, everything right down to Lieutenant d'Sora's collection of extremely simplistic and predictable romantic novels, are stored in the ship's computer."

 "But," said Zsuza gently, "Those works are not annotated, are they?"

 She leaned closer to Data and opened the book in his hand, flicking the pages and pointing at irregular marks made with a pressure instrument. "D'you see these marks? The underlinings? And look, these marginal notes. Nearly every book I have been able to examine so far has some kind of annotation in it. Others have hand-written - hand-written, Data - dedications at the beginning from some of the biggest names in chess of that time. There are even games written down on scraps of paper tucked into some of the books. They just fall out into your lap as you open them. Data, it's like Christmas."

 Data's face lit up. "So….what we have here….it is essentially a record of Lubinov's chess-playing life. And it is in such - such a chaotic condition that it would take hours to read through the whole collection and put it in order!"

 "Hours and hours!" cried Zsuza, clapping her hands. He had seen the point at once. "And it has to be collated, and set in chronological sequence!"

 Data grew even more enthusiastic. "And all the games should be analysed against Lubinov's own games so that a complete record of his chess development can be made….and then analysed again in comparison with all the games of all his contemporary grandmasters!"

 "Isn't it beautiful, Data?"

 "It is," he breathed in wonderment. "This whole collection - it has the beauty of raw history. So much here that I do not know about! So much to discover!"

 Zsuza was startled by the fervour of his words, and they gazed into each other's eyes with pure rapture for a moment.

 "But why," Data said suddenly, "is this opportunity comparable with an ancient Earth religious festival?"

 "Oh, never mind. It's an expression." Data looked crestfallen.

 "Zsuza," he said after a pause, brightening, "I would feel privileged to be allowed to help you with the work, at least for the time you are here on the Enterprise. May I?"

 "Be my guest," said Zsuza proudly, and together the two chess players dived into a packing crate - "It's like a lucky dip," said Zsuza - and settled back side by side on the cushions of Zsuza's rather small bed to examine their finds.

 There was barely room on the bed for the two of them, let alone for many of the books, which rapidly began to pile up around their feet. Pages were turned, mysterious scribbles pored over, curious documents discovered by accident when they fell out onto the coverlet; and elbows, then knees, then thighs, and especially Zsuza's breasts, brushed against each other more and more often in the narrow space of the absurdly overcrowded cabin.

 Sometimes Zsuza curled her feet up beside her and leaned further towards the android's body; sometimes he leaned back against the cushions with a book in his pale hand and a squirrelly-keen expression, his golden eyes darting back and forth, scanning every page and committing it to memory with the expectation of using it for a later revelation with which to astound Zsuza.

 At first, operating within his normal parameters of social conformity, he apologised every time his body touched hers. But after a while he stopped the apologies, perhaps because he noticed, or part of his positronic brain noticed, that she did not say "sorry" when her breast brushed against his sleeve, as it did rather often when she reached into the crate for another book, or when her auburn hair fell onto the page in front of his yellow eyes; and that part of his brain which was ever ready to imitate the behaviour of humans in its continual quest to be like them, told him that body contact was becoming acceptable in this particular, unusual, intimate situation.

 And as both android and woman became immersed in the codes and puzzles of the books, their mass of pencil and pen marginalia (what was the significance of pencil? What of pen? they debated furiously), their layers of history; and as they talked and exchanged observations, and pounced greedily on each other's discoveries, they moved closer together, and Zsuza felt the warmth of his body, as warm as hers, and the yielding firmness of the artificial flesh of his arm as he reached behind her to pick up a book; she felt the resonance of his voice, gentle and melodious but undeniably male, close to her ear. And sitting beside him, she had a perfect view of that slightly comical, tilted nose.

 "My goodness," she thought as he pointed out the notation of a particularly famous game besides which Lubinov had scrawled the one angry word "Patzer!!!!". "My goodness me, he is so darling. I think I really fancy him. I actually fancy the android."

Almost without thinking what she was doing, Zsuza put out a finger and stroked the tip of Data's nose. Data suddenly broke off what he had been saying and turned to gaze solemnly into her eyes. 

"Is there something on my nose?" he asked.

"No, I – never mind." She suddenly felt embarrassed and foolish.

"_The Games of Robert J Fischer_," Data read a book title aloud. "Intriguing. A great player but one of the most mysterious figures of twentieth century chess."

"The ultimate loner," said Zsuza, taking the book from him. As she grasped it, she let her hand rest on top of his for a little longer than she needed to, and opened it, trying hard to take in the contents. The little act of touching his hand, in such a confined space, when their minds had been working so closely and so happily together, sent a shudder of desire through her body.

But how to convey that desire to an android? He must need some kind of trigger. But what?

"Your hands are trembling," said Data softly. "Your skin is flushed, and I notice other physical signs of agitation." His eyes flickered down to her breasts, then away; her nipples, Zsuza realised, were so hard they almost ached, and must have looked as though ready to burst from her dress. "Are you unwell?"

"I feel fine," said Zsuza. "Absolutely fine."

He turned away, and bent down to pick up the silk scarf from where it still lay on the floor.

 "Zsuza," said Data seriously, running the scarf through his fingers and looking down at it as he spoke, "why is this scarf here?"

"Counsellor Troi let me keep it," she said. Did he think she had stolen it, or something? "Is that – is that a problem?"

"No, not at all. It has a curious…association for me."

Zsuza put down the book she was holding. The scarf, of course, had been the one he wore over his eyes when he lost his blindfold chess game to her; Zsuza was torn between an urge to discover if the scarf was connected with a potential weakness in his game….and an urge to pull him down onto her bed and wrap her legs around him.

"Are you able to tell me about it?" she said.

There was a long silence while Data continued to play with the scarf, sometimes running it through his fingers and sometimes opening its folds and shaking them out like a butterfly's wing. He sat on the side of Zsuza's bed and she sat down next to him.

"I was requested to be sure that…" his voice trailed away as he realised how poor his syntax was. He tried again, with the active rather than the passive voice (always a good idea in a tight spot).

"Someone was wearing something very like this. It was not this one. It was a scarf she had obtained from the ship's stores. She chose it because it was like something Counsellor Troi might wear. That is what she told me. She was not feeling 'herself'."

"What else did she tell you, Data?" His expression was so woebegone that Zsuza simply had to put her arms round him; there was nothing else a woman could do.

"She told me that it never happened. But it did. I know it did because I remember it."

"What never happened, Data?" Zsuza felt the way you do when you walk into someone's basement, say it has marvellous potential, turn around and realise that the three-metre drop down into the coal-hole was just behind your feet all the time. She hoped desperately that some horrible revelation – murder? Rape? Starfleet treason? – was not about to pop out, as she would then be obliged to tell Captain Picard. 

"She – I mean, the someone – asked me to access my sexuality program. So I did."

Zsuza almost visibly sagged with relief. That was all! The coal-hole became a short well-lit flight of steps to a soft landing. 

"She said it never happened. But I know it did," he repeated, half to himself. 

"Data, to be perfectly honest I don't really know what your sexuality program entails," whispered Zsuza, her heart beating so hard she was sure it was audible. "But I would very much like you to – to access it, again, for me."

The android's face immediately assumed a blank, introspective expression for a moment, as though seeking out a long-hidden file from far back in his astounding memory. 

This was, indeed, precisely what he was doing. Data normally kept his sexuality program in a special backstairs archive for skills he did not expect to need while serving on the Enterprise. A 0.002 second search brought it to light, sandwiched between "_sewing" _and "_sgrafito"_. 

After making a mental note to dig out "_sgrafito"_ when he and Geordi next had some time together to devote to Art, Data let the scarf fall from his hands and then, very slowly, he bent his head towards Zsuza and pressed his lips lightly against hers in a cool, at first tentative but then exploring kiss.

 As she kissed him back and closed her eyes, she felt his hand steal around her to encircle her waist. Drawing him closer to her by the shoulders, an inexpressible excitement rose up in her as she felt the kiss grow stronger; the android's tongue, as moist and warm as a human's (it was in fact quite devoid of tastebuds, being mainly used in forming speech - and for the purpose to which Data was now putting it) searched her mouth and they sank back onto the cushions together.

 With his body pressed down onto hers, his thigh seeking the space between her thighs and setting off a pleasant, anticipatory tingle between her legs, he began a series of slow, light kisses around her throat and neck, briefly exploring her ear in a warm, moist effusion of breath. (So he really breathed!)

 The sense of his body on top of hers was delicious, warm and solid. Here was a man who could not possibly hurt her. He could not love her, she knew that; but neither could he hate her, tire of her or tell her she was out of his league. He was not interested in bragging to his friends, branding her a slut or proving anything to himself. If he told her she looked like shit he might mean it honestly, but he would not mean it to hurt. He simply wanted to give her pleasure. And to play chess with her. It was the safest, snuggest feeling Zsuza had ever known.

 "Tell me something," the android whispered. "How did I lose that last game of blitz chess? I feel my concentration was imperfect but I cannot analyse why."

 "It's very simple," she said, breathlessly, as he began to undo the laces of her costume, nuzzling her cleavage with his lips and loosening the bodice to release her breasts, whose nipples he began to kiss and lick as she spoke, "I conducted a little experiment. I theorised that if your over-riding sense of curiosity were stimulated, then there was a chance – aaahh, that's…so nice - that your chess-playing might be slightly .impaired. In other words, you were distracted by the thought of what I had to show you in my cabin."

 "Speaking of which." said the android, cupping one breast thoughtfully in his hand and examining it, "did I guess your bra size correctly?" She giggled, and wriggled delightedly in his arms.

 "You guessed absolutely right and I would say I am the only 80D cup on board this ship."

 "I would say that was not accurate. But you are right to assume that it is an unusual measurement."

 "Now you tell me, where did you learn to estimate the size of a woman's breasts so perfectly?"

 "I recall every fact I am exposed to."

 "That's not an answer, Data. (Oh I love that…)"

"Very well, if you must know, while at Starfleet Academy I had a vacation job in a ladies' lingerie department. Sometimes I keep in practice by privately estimating the bra size of the women around me. It is useful to discover that I have not lost my touch."

 Zsuza burst into more giggles; aware that he had said something amusing, Data decided that his sexuality program must be functioning properly and felt encouraged to continue with the next phase of it. The talking stopped and the kissing began again in earnest.

 Although Data had used his sexuality program before, he observed that with a different woman, the experience was different enough to be intriguing. (He wondered how many times a man had to make love to a woman before it stopped being interesting.)

 On that strange day, when the late Tasha Yar had led him into her bedroom, she had been half naked, distracted and desperate; but today Zsuza was fully clothed, so the unfamiliar lacing of the woman's dress was fascinating. 

There are not many knots on board starships, so the act of undoing the long, trailing ribbons gave him a sense of quiet boy-scout-like satisfaction, and awoke intriguing memories of unknotting a coloured chiffon scarf from around Tasha's neat, athletic breasts – yet this time it was so different. 

Furthermore the woman on the bed with him this time seemed to be healthy and happy, and the delighted squirming of her body close to his own was stimulating something that he knew to be an erection.

 Just as Data, having undone the lacing down as far as Zsuza's waist, was running his hand lightly, but not too lightly, up Zsuza's thigh to discover something else about this year's Europa 4 fashions - "Are these not stockings? Am I correct? And this is a ….suspender belt?" and as his fingers, after tracing a few lazy circles on her inner thigh, were finding their way underneath the elastic edge of her knickers, while Zsuza began to undo his trousers with a view to releasing the firm penis that was fighting for freedom, his commbadge uttered its perky squawk.

Captain Picard.

 "Commander Data, to the bridge, please," came the Captain's upper-crust basso profundo. "I'm sorry to break into your off-time, but we've just found something floating in space that needs your attention."

 Then the half-broken voice of young Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher, brilliant child prodigy and one of Data's regular companions, cut in excitedly. "Data! You have to see this! We've found another android! And Data, it's - it's kind of a - a lady android! And Data, she's got hardly any clothes on!"

(End of chapter 2)

  


* * *

* For the benefit of American readers: this measurement is in centimetres, not inches.


	3. Unwrapping

**A perfect mate**  
  
_The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons. If you have stuck with me this far, thank you._

  
**Chapter 3**

**Unwrapping  
**  
It had been Wesley who first spotted the cubic shape lackadaisically orbiting  the planet they were passing. In his tireless scanning of the ship's immediate space environment, the boy never failed to bring the Captain's attention to every single one of his discoveries.  
  
"Captain, look, a comet!"  
  
"Yes, Wesley. Thank you."  
  
"Captain, look, an asteroid belt! Do you think we should investigate it, Sir?"  
  
"No, Wesley. Thank you , Wesley."  
  
"Oooh, Captain, look! This could be really important!"  
  
"Wesley, are you sure you aren't meant to be doing some sort of school work somewhere else?"  
  
"But Captain, look at this. It could be an old spaceship or something."  
  
"On viewer," said Captain Picard irritably. The viewer showed a large, floating oblong box, not dissimilar to the ones crowding Dr Androva's quarters (though neither the captain nor the boy knew this).  
  
"Well, Worf?"  
  
"Scanners show no life forms; contents appear to be bacteriologically sterile; no sign of anything potentially dangerous - no explosive devices picked up. But there is a computer of some kind on board," growled Lieutenant Worf.  
  
"Can I have a look at it, Captain? Pleeeese."  
  
"Oh all right, Wesley, if it will keep you quiet. Stick a tractor beam on it, then you can nip down to the transporter room and see if they can bring it in. Little project for you, eh?"  
  
Five minutes later the boy disappeared excitedly into the turbolift - and the bridge crew uttered a communal sigh of relief.  
  
"Thought I'd never get rid of him," muttered the Captain. Five minutes later the turbolift swished open again. "Ah! Doctor Crusher! What a delightful surprise!"  
  
"Captain," said the beautiful doctor briskly. "Wesley has just told me that you have allowed him to take in some piece of unidentified space junk. How can you let a child take on such a responsibility?"  
  
"Just a little extracurricular assignment I thought he could hone his powers of initiative and judgement on," squirmed Captain Picard. "We've ascertained that there is no danger involved. Surely, Beverley, you cannot think I would put the dear boy in harm's way?"  
  
His answer was a hard stare, and Wil Riker leapt to his feet.  
  
"I'll go with Wesley, Captain."  
  
"Thank you, Number One," said Captain Picard gratefully.  
  
In transporter room 3, Riker found Wesley hopping from one foot to another in excitement as two junior Security officers cautiously surveyed the ancient box that sat sullenly on the transporter platform.  
  
"Seems harmless so far," said the senior security officer. "Just this writing on the box. Ann Summers plc, it says." 

"Sounds as though it could be armaments. Best get this to a laboratory before we open it up," said Riker hastily.  
  
As the security officer gingerly prised open the case a few minutes later, an expectant hush fell in the laboratory Riker had designated for examining Wesley's find. The box was about six foot long, two feet wide, and if Worf's  readings had not suggested otherwise, Riker would have said it was simply a coffin.  
  
But instead of the corpse he almost half-expected to see, it contained a mass of small white shapes of some kind of sterile synthetic material which instantly showered themselves all over the room. Wesley screamed and Commander Riker barked orders as the security officers leapt back, then cautiously he picked up one of the fragments.  
  
"I think - I hope - this is just packaging material," he said slowly, and handed it to one of the security officers, who quickly ran it past a tricorder. "Better get it swept up fast - could be carcinogenic. This thing looks 21st to 22nd century to me and they used to use incredibly toxic materials in those days."  
  
Once they had dealt with the layer of white shapes, the men all uttered an involuntary gasp. Underneath a layer of semi-transparent material of bubble-like appearance stretched across the inside of the box was the unmistakeable shape of a nearly-naked Caucasian woman with cascading blonde hair, vast breasts and a pouting red mouth.  
  
"Right, let's get this opened up, shall we?" said Riker quickly, interrupting the whoops of the two young security officers, and tapped his commbadge. "Captain, I think you might like to see this. I mean - I know you are interested in archaeology."  
  
By the time the Captain arrived at the lab, Riker had carefully unwrapped the bubblepack as far down as the woman's breasts, which, had they been real, would have been miracles of gravity-defiance, and were lightly encircled by a filmy strip of lilac lace. Wesley's mouth was hanging open.  
  
"Don't you think Wesley should be somewhere else, Captain?" whispered Riker anxiously. But no one was listening. For just as he spoke, the woman opened her eyes and smiled radiantly round the room. She looked completely human.  
  
"Hello, boys," she said, and closed her eyes again.  
  
It was at that point that Picard summoned Data, who rushed into the lab smoothing down his hair and dusting off his uniform, Riker noticed with interest. Data glanced at the woman in the box. "It - she - is sentient?" he asked Picard.  
  
"She just said hello to us," said Wesley excitedly.  
  
"That doesn't mean she's sentient," said Picard. "I've known women who could talk the hind legs off donkeys whom I would hesitate to call 'sentient'."  
  
Riker cautiously peeled back a little more of the wrapping, this time revealing the breasts in their full glory, a narrow waist and a pert little navel adorned with a silver waist chain, to which some kind of lacy lilac-coloured thong seemed to be attached. Suddenly her eyes flicked open again and she smiled round the room in exactly the same manner as before.  
  
"Hello, boys," she said again, then, looking at Data, "And hello to you, sweetie," - then she closed her eyes. Data tilted his head and looked at her with new, bird-like interest.  
  
"Can I help?"  
  
Dr Zsuza Androva, senior lecturer in scientific archaeology at the University of New Vienna, Europa 4 Eastern Continent, whose difficulty with re-lacing her dress had caused her to arrive several minutes after Data, was standing in the doorway, completely ignored by the men who were crowding round the box, peering over each other's shoulders for a better view of the thing inside.  
  
"We have something interesting from at least a couple of hundred years ago, we reckon," said Riker with an ill-concealed leer.  
  
"Bit of archaeology for you," said the Captain, jovially.  
  
The men stood back to allow Dr Androva to see the woman, who had now been unwrapped down far enough to reveal that the lace thong barely covered a beautiful, plump, pouting  mons veneris, complete with light brown fuzz styled in a Brazilian wax.  
  
"I see," said Dr Androva, after a pause that seemed interminably long and chilly to all the men in the room (except Data). She noticed that a few pubic hairs were escaping from the creature's thong, as though longing for freedom.   
  
"What do you think, Doctor? We would appreciate your professional opinion," said the Captain in his most velvety tones.  
  
There was a further silence while the men shifted from foot to foot trying not to catch each others' eyes.  
  
"I'm sorry to disappoint you but in my professional opinion, this is not an android," said Zsuza. "This is a mid-twenty-second  century animatronic figure. Very interesting of its type but nothing unusual, though I am sorry to see that you have opened the box so hastily. Heaven knows what evidence you have destroyed already. We have an entire Department of Early Packaging who would have given their eye teeth to do the job in proper research conditions and with a full Federal grant over the next five years."

"I'm terribly sorry," said Riker, coldly. "To be frank, I was more worried about whether the contents posed a threat to the Enterprise and its crew. That is my priority, Dr Androva."

"Of course," said Zsuza with equal chilliness. "Please, Commander, do not think for a moment that I was suggesting that you unpackaged her hastily because you all couldn't wait to see the size of her bazookas."

  
"What purpose does she serve, Zsuza?" asked Data, who was only marginally interested in this exchange.  As if answering his question, the figure in the box opened her eyes again. This time, she gazed straight into the eyes of the nearest male, which happened to be Wesley, and said sweetly, "Hi! I'm Fanny. I SO BADLY want you to fuck me, sweetheart! And hard!"  
  
"Wesley! Out!" barked the Captain.  
  
"But."  
  
"OUTSIDE!"  
  
The boy left the room with Commander Riker's strong hands on his shoulders. "But Sir, I found her!" could be heard receding faintly as Riker propelled him through the door.   
  
Data looked in puzzlement at the faces of the three men and one woman around him. "Inquiry. What is the purpose of this artificial life form? And how certain are you that she is merely animatronic?" He looked closely at the woman in the box. "She looks perfectly formed. And look - her skin colour is natural. A society which can create an artificial life form as sophisticated as she appears to be may also be able to create a true android such as myself. And" - he added with immense admiration - "she spoke using a verbal contraction!"  
  
There was another awkward pause. To the humans, the creature's grammatical dexterity had not been the most striking point of her little speech to Wesley.  
  
"Well," said Zsuza, watching Data, who was beginning to examine the blonde in the box more closely than she thought necessary, "that was my professional opinion you just heard. My personal opinion is that she's a whore."  
  
"Right," said the Captain quickly. "That's sorted then. Dr Androva, I expect you will want to be taking this curiosity back to your university."  
  
"I suppose I have to, though as I said, your officers have seriously corrupted the packaging," answered Zsuza sulkily. "Data, why are you looking under its thong?"  
  
"I am searching for her power switch," said Data innocently, looking up from where he had been prodding about among the blonde's pubic hair.  
  
By now several more members of the crew - all male - were crowding round the door of the lab; word of Wesley's find had spread like wildfire.  
  
"Dr Androva, for now I shall have to leave you in charge of this…. of this," said the Captain. "I expect you will want to make a full inspection and report. Data, I'm sure you can find time to give her a hand."  
  
"Certainly, sir," said Data keenly.  
  
"But in the meantime, could you just pop down to engineering and help with the warp core maintenance? They seem to be having a bit of trouble with the realignment. Won't take you a minute."  
  
"Yes, Captain."  
  
"Oh, and Data, the umbilical hardpoint nodules down near the tractor beam emitter are playing up again. Nothing you can't handle, I shouldn't wonder."  
  
"I shall take a look at the problem after I have finished in Engineering, Sir."  
  
"Excellent." The captain began to walk away, ushering out with peremptory flicks of his hand the two security officers, who were both casting wide- eyed looks backwards at Fanny, and the small crowd which had gathered at the door. He suddenly halted in his tracks and turned back towards Data.  
  
"Damn it, I knew there was something else. Having a bit of a party in the ready room tomorrow evening. Could you be a good chap and rustle up a string quartet for me?"  
  
"It will be a pleasure, Sir."  
  
"Thank you, Data. I know I can always rely on you.  
  
"Awfully good chap, you know," Zsuza heard the Captain confide to the security officers, one of whom was new to the ship, as he walked away. "Feels absolutely no emotion. Quite extraordinary."

  
As Data carefully lifted Fanny in his arms and laid her on an examination table, Zsuza briefed him on what kind of machine she thought Fanny was.  
  
"There were thousands of these sort of things made commercially in the middle of the twenty-second C," she said. "They were shipped out to early pioneer posts for the use of construction workers and the like."  
  
"Use?"  
  
"Data, you are priceless. Surely you've got the message by now? She's a sex toy. A masturbatory doll. She can have sex, probably not very well, and that is all she can do. As soon as the early pioneer settlements were considered safe for women, the market for things like Fanny declined."  
  
"Why would a settlement be considered safe for men and not for women?" asked Data.  
  
"It was a rough job, and most of the construction was done by penal servitude. Chain gangs, if you like."  
  
Zsuza turned Fanny, who had returned to her earlier quiescent state, over onto her tummy. "There should be some kind of - ah, yes, here it is."  
  
She ran her fingers down Fanny's spine and part of the smooth, lightly tanned back sprang open. Data peered hopefully inside.  
  
"See what I mean?" said Zsuza. "Not very bright. Just robotics, Data. No positronics, no neural net. She can respond to a small range of commands and vocal stimuli. She can probably respond to physical stimuli in keeping with - er, her function. But she can't think like you, Data. Look, you can even see the joint where she opens up at the back - her skin looks good, but in reality it isn't a patch on yours, honey. Sorry," Zsuza added, her heart softened by his disappointed expression. "Were you hoping for a real girlfriend?"  
  
"I suppose in a way I was," said the android in a small voice. Then he brightened. "But I too have a sexuality program. If we can get her operating within her normal parameters, maybe I could have sex with her. So then she would be my girlfriend, would she not?"  
  
Zsuza swallowed hard. Had he completely forgotten what they were in the middle of doing when the Captain's call came? Of course he had not. To hell with it. Let him learn his lesson.  
  
"Good idea, Data. I'll see what I can do to get her started up. Didn't the Captain give you a whole lot of chores to do?"  
  
"Ah. Yes. I shall return in an hour."  
  
Zsuza began with the ship's computer: not much luck there. It held little detail on the history of sex toys ("Starfleet really are such prudes," thought Zsuza), so she opened an external channel and logged onto her university's records back on Europa 4. There was quite a bit of general stuff there about other animatronic forms, a lot of fascinating background about the history of animatronics and its origins in the children's entertainment industry, and a fair amount of solid basic research about sex toys in general - but nothing about any particular robotic model called Fanny.  
  
As she pored over the screen, Zsuza felt there was something odd about the omission. Fanny seemed to fit all the specifications of a mid 22nd C animatronic sex toy; yet there was no patent filed, no trade name or description registered that fitted exactly the exaggeratedly curvaceous creature lying on the workbench behind her.  
  
There was, however, a diagram of a similar model ("Sugar Kane") which gave Zsuza an idea of how to operate her basic controls. Zsuza returned to Fanny, lying on the bench, and found a pair of disposable surgical gloves in a drawer.  
  
"Let's see if we can find your root switch," she murmured. "Data wasn't far off, bless him, and given your name, it's pretty obvious."  
  
Feeling a little voyeuristic, and wishing there were someone else in the room with her, Zsuza peeled back Fanny's little lacy thong and cautiously poked her first two fingers into the creature's vagina. "Let's just pretend I'm your doctor, OK?" she said aloud, more for her own benefit than that of Fanny, who had remained silent and motionless since Data had left the room.  
  
It was a tight fit, and Fanny's fanny was not lubricated, but sure enough Zsuza's probing fingers found a small nodule right at the top where a real woman's cervix would be. It was set in a shallow depression - presumably so that it could not be accidentally activated while Fanny was at work, so to speak.  
  
There was a faint hum as though of circuitry being set off after a long, long period of silence. Fanny's body began to throb as though coming alive. The vagina instantly became moist, warm and slippery. The creature began to wriggle and squirm as delightedly outside Zsuza's fingers as Zsuza had been hoping to do outside Data's not long before. Then Zsuza had the shock of her life.  
  
With a lightening movement, the kind of fast response we only use when we are really frightened, she whipped her hand out of Fanny and jumped back. As soon as she did so, Fanny opened her eyes, looked around, saw Zsuza and closed her eyes again as if going back to sleep.  
  
She looked utterly innocent. But when the humming noise, the throbbing and the wriggling had begun, Zsuza's fingers had found themselves in contact with the edges of two rows of tiny, razor-sharp metal teeth.  
  
Since Fanny was still lying quietly, Zsuza, shaking from head to foot, went back to the computer screen to double check the material she had downloaded from her university files. No, there was no Fanny doll. But there was something else…  
  
Suddenly, Zsuza heard a slight movement behind her back. She whirled round to find Fanny standing close behind her, smiling inanely.  
  
"Hi," said Fanny. "Tell me where the boys are, will you, sister?" There was a glint in her blue eyes that Zsuza did not like; it was nothing like the open, trusting expression she saw in Data's face. And although Fanny was teetering on four inch heels, her unnaturally slender arms and thighs looked extremely strong close up.  
  
"Of course I will," Zsuza said carefully. "Fanny, I am so glad to see you are operating. Would you like to show me how you are switched on and off?"  
  
"No," said Fanny, and uttered a high-pitched giggle.  
  
"Why not, Fanny?"  
  
"'Cuz you're a girl," and Fanny giggled again.  
  
"Fanny, I will need to make sure that you are working properly in case you need attention. You have been in storage a long time. Now if you'd like to lie on your tummy on the nice couch over there, I can check your insides and make sure you're a well girl."  
  
"No," said Fanny.  
  
Zsuza tapped the commpad. Her hands, still wearing the surgical gloves, were trembling.  
  
"Lt Commander Data?"  
  
A moment later, Data's voice came on the line, rather muffled, as though he were lying underneath the plasma coil in engineering and staring up at it, which as it happened was exactly what he was doing.  
  
"Zsuza? Can I help? (I shall need that sonic driver over there, Jim. No, the green one. Thank you.)"  
  
"Data, I need you here now. The robot -"  
  
"You mean the android?"  
  
"The robot, Data - how can I say this? She seems to be fiercely heterosexual. She seems programmed only to obey commands from male voices. And, Data, I'm not sure she's -"  
  
"Zsuza, is this a priority? I am very busy right now and I have several orders from the Captain to carry out."  
  
Yeah, including playing violin at his private party, thought Zsuza angrily. But aloud she said, "Fine, I'll have to find another man to help me," and closed the channel.  
  
So no one heard the scream that issued from Zsuza's throat a moment later; or the crash of her body as she fell in a crumpled heap on the floor, rendered unconscious by a cracking blow from a perfectly manicured hand.  
  
(end of chapter 3)


	4. Where's Fanny?

A Perfect Mate 

The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons. If you have stuck with me this far, thank you..

Chapter 4: Where's Fanny? 

Dim people are not allowed in Starfleet. The exams are so tough that even Wesley Crusher failed them first time. But examinations which are intended by their devisers to test for intellectual ability do not always search out those blessed with the most generous portion of common sense. And that is where Ensign Dwayne George Hucker comes in.

For most men in Starfleet, the sight of an almost totally unclothed blonde lounging in the corridor opposite one's cabin door might arouse at least a little suspicion. But Dwayne, while being an outstanding student of warp drive theory and the proud member of a small group of brilliant young engineers whom Geordi LaForge was grooming for greater things, had started out as the kind of child who can be relied on to stick a knitting needle into a power socket; from then on it had been downhill all the way.

So when he emerged, freshly showered, from his cabin and saw a nearly naked blonde human female with impossibly long legs and impossibly large breasts smiling at him, Dwayne knew exactly what to do. He adopted what he hoped was a devilish grin, ran his fingers through his hair to check its bounce, sauntered across to the woman, rested one hand on the wall beside her head in imitation of something he had seen Commander Riker do, and said, for want of anything more interesting to say, "Hi."

"Hi there," said Fanny. "I want you to fuck me. And hard!"

Dwayne was rather surprised to have had such an instant effect on the female. In fact, he had been meaning to talk round the situation for a few minutes, building up to the issues Fanny had just raised. But beggars can't be choosers, and Dwayne was due to start his duty shift in Engineering in forty-five minutes, so he decided to skip breakfast, and invited her in. 

…………………………………………………………………………..

"And then I think we should bring on our reserve player and end with Schubert's Trout Quintet," Lt Commander Data said in conclusion. "Is that acceptable to everyone?"

"Commander Data, you know how I feel about the Trout. It's an opener; it's lively and happy and everyone knows it. Why don't we wind up with one of Beethoven's late quartets?" suggested the viola, a neat brunette.

"Yeah, like that will put everyone in a good mood. And you always want to start with the Trout. It's sooo predictable," snapped the cello, a permanently sarcastic half-Vulcan mother of two.

"Nothing _you _play is predictable, Ensign Kirsten M'Kok," retorted the second violin, a tall young black woman in a Science officer uniform. "Since I know for a fact that you haven't practised for days, we are all on tenterhooks at every note, believe me."

The meeting was turning ugly, and normally Data would have sat back and let the three women of his string quartet snarl at each other, since there were few spectacles he found so fascinating and incomprehensible as the disagreements of human females. 

But today he was in a hurry. Up in the lab there was an activated female android of very unusual specifications waiting for him, under the expert care of the best chess player Data had ever met. If he had known what "a pig in clover" meant, he would have applied the expression to himself with alacrity.

Data clapped his hands. "Starfleet officers, and dedicated musicians," he said sternly, "do not bicker. As the lead violin and ship's Second Officer, I reserve the right to have the final say on the programme. We finish with Schubert and start with Mozart, as usual. Is that clear?"

The three junior officers looked at him meekly and nodded. 

"Good. I calculate that your normal duties and requirements for sleep, eating, and personal hygiene will leave an average of four hours and thirty eight minutes available practice time between now and the Captain's party tomorrow. I expect you to make full use of that time.  Meeting dismissed."

"Isn't he lovely when he's angry?" the viola said in a stage whisper as he walked out. 

"At least he's allowed us toilet breaks," said the second violin. 

The door swished shut behind the android's back just in time to render inaudible an explosion of schoolgirl giggles.

…………………………………….

The lab was locked. Probably Zsuza had locked it, in response to the human taboo concerning public nakedness, thought Data. And if that were the case, it proved that the "robot", as Zsuza persisted in describing the lovely Fanny, was in her eyes more than an automaton. _Quod erat demonstrandum. Ha!_

Tapping his commbadge, Data was about to expound this nice piece of logic eloquently to Zsuza via the room's commpad, but was greeted by a fuzzy silence. 

"Zsuza?"

Silence.

"Dr Androva, are you there?"

Silence.

Data looked again at the door. It had not been locked, but jammed from the outside by some device that looked remarkably like a woman's toe-ring.

Sensing an emergency, Data forced the door control open with his fingernails and tapped in the override code. The door creaked open. 

His visual receptors took in the scene of devastation inside the lab. Workbenches had been overthrown, tools lay scattered everywhere as though someone had been searching for something. The box in which Fanny had arrived had been smashed to pieces. A life form which could wreak this much damage with its bare hands would have to be at least as strong as Data himself. 

And in the middle of the chaos, face down and horribly still with her skirt all askew, lay the small, very vulnerable-looking body of Dr Androva.

…………………………………………………………….

Worf had just been thinking what a quiet morning it was turning out to be when he heard the annoyingly even-tempered voice of his android superior resounding through the bridge.

"Data to Bridge. Security Alert. Medical assistance needed urgently in Lab 21."

"What's the problem, Mr Data?" 

The captain stood up with a cup of Earl Grey in his hand.

"Dr Androva is seriously injured, Sir. She has received a severe blow to the head and is concussed. I suspect that the newly discovered android – robot – is responsible. It must be on the loose in the ship. Captain, this is a dangerous situation and I recommend a full security alert."

Picard sprang into action, barking orders to various parts of the ship. 

"The ship's sensors should identify the robot's location soon enough," he said to Riker.

"Description of intruder, Sir?" asked Worf.

"Right. Well. Humanoid. About 175 cm tall. Long fair hair, light tan skin, blue eyes. Oh, and she's – it's wearing a sort of lacy ribbon around her, you know..." the captain waved a hand in the direction of his chest, "and a sort of thong thing. Lace. Lilac."

There was a low wolf-whistle from the ensign manning the conn post. 

"Shut up, McManus," snarled Picard.

……………………………………………..

Zsuza opened her eyes to find herself encircled by two strong arms. One slender, white-gold hand was gently stroking her face and a red-headed whirlwind was flying in through the door in a blue doctor's coat.

"She is regaining consciousness now, Dr Crusher."

Zsuza sat up.

"I want you in sickbay," began the doctor.

"No! There isn't time – oof…" Zsuza clutched her head. She felt horribly dizzy and the back of her head hurt. 

"Data, that robot is incredibly dangerous. I've realised what she is now."

She told him and Dr Crusher about the teeth. 

"What I want to know is, why were you examining this thing on your own, without a Starfleet officer on hand?" asked Dr Crusher severely, running her scanning instruments over Zsuza's body.

"I'm sorry, Dr Crusher, but everyone seems to have been in a hurry to see what this robot could do, ever since Wesley brought her on board and she spoke to him."

"WESLEY????" the doctor shrieked. "You mean this is Wesley's 'archaeological project' we're talking about? And it spoke to him?"

"That is correct, Doctor," explained Data, helpfully. "She spoke to your son. The precise words were, 'Hi, I am Fanny. I SO BADLY want you to – why, Dr Androva, I fear you may be suffering some neural damage. Your right foot seems to be spasming. You have just kicked me in the shin."

A terrible thought had occurred to Zsuza which cleared her head with savage briskness. 

"Doctor Crusher, on no account should that creature be allowed near your son. Or near any man. But especially not your son."

"Zsuza, the Captain has already put out a major security alert," said Data soothingly. 

"Please go and find your son now, Doctor," said Zsuza. "I'm fine. I'll explain later."

"I'll give that man his 'little extracurricular project'," muttered Dr Crusher as, white as a sheet, she fled the room.

Data helped Zsuza to her feet.

"I couldn't find any reference to Fanny in any of my university's animatronics records," she explained. "And now I think I know why."

At the computer desk, she quickly opened up the research files she had been working on. 

"I couldn't find Fanny, because that is not her name. But if I search for this…"

Data looked over her shoulder.

"_Vagina Dentata…" _he read. 

"An illegal animatronic model developed in the early twenty-second century by criminal organisations in the prostitution and protection business. Little is known about this model as no extant examples exist, but it is thought to have been intended as a way of punishing late debtors……"

His voice trailed away as they both read on, and they exchanged glances.

"This has to go straight to the Captain," said Data.

…………………………………

"Vagina Dentata is programmed to offer pleasure to men," Zsuza was explaining to the Captain, once on the bridge. She was still feeling groggy and was glad of Data's arm round her waist.

"She refuses commands from women; her programming is intended to lull a man into thinking she is entirely at his mercy. Then, as soon as she has got him _in flagrante delicto, _her attack mechanism comes into play and these two sets of razor sharp teeth close rapidly in on his….."__

"Yes, thank you, Dr Androva, I think we get the picture," said the Captain hastily. "The question is, why aren't our sensors picking up any signals from the robot? It should be easy to find its location."

"Theory," said Data. "Fanny's – Vagina Dentata's, I should say - antiquated technology is out of the range familiar to our security sensors. We have no option but to hunt her down physically, Captain."

Suddenly the bridge communications channel squawked. "Someone help, please!" came a man's anguished voice. "We need a doctor – Deck thirteen - please!" In the background could be heard another man's voice, screaming horribly.

There was a thud behind the Captain's chair. 

Lieutenant Worf had fainted.


	5. Jailbait

A Perfect Mate 

The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons. If you have stuck with me this far, thank you.

Chapter 5 Jailbait 

…..

Ensign Nimmo cradled his friend Ensign Hucker in his arms, trying desperately to soothe the man's demented screaming. After what seemed an eternity he looked up to see the ship's chief medical officer rushing through the door.

"Oh dear heaven," said Dr Crusher, uncharacteristically.

A pool of blood was creeping over the floor next to the hysterical Ensign Hucker, who clutched desperately at his crotch with gore-soaked fingers. In the middle of the pool of blood was a small, sad piece of severed flesh.

Dr Crusher thought quickly. By the time Data and Zsuza were hotfooting through the door, closely attended by all Ensign Hucker's drinking buddies who wanted to see what was going on, she had given the poor man a general anaesthetic and, as soon as his dreadful screams had abated, commandeered a medical team to take him –with the small, sad piece of flesh that was the remains of his manhood immersed in a freezepack– straight to Sickbay.

"I want you, you and you," she said, pointing to the three women in the group that had gathered, appalled, around the door. The men all looked white as sheets. One elegant lieutenant known as the Lothario of Deck 13 was being sick in the corner.

Data ordered a search of Hucker's quarters. To everyone's dismay, his phaser had disappeared; and Nimmo was pretty sure that one of Hucker's spare uniforms was gone, as well.

"Permission to attend the patient too," spoke up Ensign Nimmo, bravely. "He's my best mate."

"Very well, Nimmo," said the doctor reluctantly. "But I have to say I think this is a woman's job."

"Or an android's," cut in Data. "May I point out that I am the only male-pattern life form not troubled by  the peculiar form of this attack."

Everyone looked at him. There was a snicker from the back of the crowd. Doctor Crusher could smell insubordination a mile off.

"What the Lieutenant Commander means, and I speak as his doctor," she said icily, "is that although he is anatomically exactly similar, he is not susceptible to the emotional trauma which you all seem to be suffering."

"Sir! Even you'd mind if some bitch cut your dick off with teeth inside her cunt," said the Lothario of Deck 13, looking up wanly from the corner. Some of the men nodded and murmured in agreement. They were all standing, Zsuza noticed, with their hands clasped protectively in front of their flies.

"No, I would not 'mind'. I would simply fix it back on again," said Data sensibly. "I expect you all to face any threat to the Enterprise – or to its crew – like professional Starfleet officers. And, Harrison," he gave the wan Lothario an adamantine look, "you are on report for inappropriate language."

The men looked at Data with new respect. The women looked at him with admiration.

 "Dr Crusher," interjected Zsuza, "did you find Wesley?"

"You bet I did, and he is totally, totally confined to our quarters for the foreseeable future," said the doctor warmly. "With instructions to let no one in."

"Good," said Zsuza. "Come on, Data." 

She beckoned him out of the room urgently. 

"I don't really want the doctor to know this, but her quarters are exactly where we should be heading for. Wesley Crusher has a new career. As jailbait."

………………………………………………………………………

"Dr Crusher to Bridge. I am performing emergency surgery on Ensign Hucker. Has Data caught that thing yet?" 

"That young Hucker's stuck his knitting needle in one too many power sockets," murmured Picard as he paced the bridge. Being childless himself, Picard took a more paternal interest in the biographical notes of his younger crew members than most of them realised.

"Data's heading up the search team," he said aloud, gazing in awe at the still-prone Klingon, beside whom Counsellor Troi was kneeling solicitously. "Doctor, what – er –exactly is the prognosis for your patient?"

"He has lost a lot of blood, but it's just a routine operation. He'll be up and about in no time."

"About, maybe," muttered Riker. "But up? That may take a while."

"Captain," the doctor's voice piped up again, as though reading Riker's mind, "the psychological effect of this incident could be much worse than the physical scars. (Hypersonic needle, nurse. Thank you.) And I'm not just talking about Hucker. All his friends were practically hysterical – his male friends, I mean. I have a queue of men outside my door right now begging for tranquillisers. The very idea of having one's penis cut off during the sex act seems to make them….."

"Yes, I do see," said the Captain, who had turned a deathly white and sat down rather quickly at the words "hypersonic needle".

"I'm worried too, Captain," broke in Counsellor Troi. "We could be looking at hundreds of  cases of traumatic adult castration anxiety."

"Meaning…"

"Mass impotence, Captain," said the counsellor as gently as she could, "and psychological impotence at that. Much more difficult to deal with than that caused by purely physical factors. With the attendant problems of grief, sexual frustration, loss of self-esteem, depression, potential suicide risks…and that's just the women I'm talking about, Captain. For the men….."

 "But where is Mr Data?" said the Captain suddenly. "It's not like him to be out of touch for this long. "

"He's in the turbolift, heading for the senior officer's quarters, sir," reported McManus, checking the bridge monitors.

………………………………………………………………………..

"Why do you think Fanny will try to find Wesley?" asked Data in the turbolift.

"It's just a hunch. I suspect that Fanny may be programmed to memorise and seek out the men she sees when her box is opened.

"In that way, the criminal who uses her as a weapon can be confident that she will attack the man to whom she is sent as a gift. She only used Hucker to get what she needed to hunt down her target, and perhaps to check that her own weaponry was functioning. Nice, huh?"

"She is not so primitive as you at first thought, Dr Androva," said Data with a hint of satisfaction.

"I grant you that: it may be that when she was made, there were technologies being developed  in the less regulated criminal world that outstripped the legitimate world," agreed Zsuza. "Let's take stock of her capabilities." 

"We already know she has a few basic subterfuges such as jamming the doors and the commpads, adopting disguises – Ensign Hucker's uniform – and she can possibly manipulate weapons," said Data.

"And she may have been able to trick Hucker into showing her how his phaser worked," added Zsuza. "We must assume she is capable of deceit."

"In my opinion, she has the basis of a sophisticated quasi-android programming. I still maintain that with the appropriate re-programming, she could become a….partner for me," said Data, wondering why every other android he met had to be evil.

They were now outside the Crushers' door. 

"Wesley, this is Data. It is safe for you to open the door," said Data loudly into his commbadge.

Silence.

"Oh no…." breathed Zsuza, grateful that the boy's mother was too busy with her amputated patient to be there at that moment.

"Stand back while I release the door, please," said Data mechanically. All his human characteristics seemed to be put aside in dangerous situations, and he became more than normally android-ish, Zsuza noted, as he took out a small implement and silently, deftly prised open Dr Crusher's front door. 

Phaser at the ready, Data stalked through the Crusher's hallway. As soon as he was confident all was clear, he beckoned Zsuza to follow close behind. 

They could hear talking in the lounge. And giggling; high-pitched, inane giggling. Zsuza recognised Fanny's voice, too.

"Oh-oh," whispered Zsuza.

"Zsuza, you are a woman – tell me – the maternal instinct is very complex – should we call the Doctor now?" Data whispered.

"No. This is a situation for the boy's kind, older, male friend. You," she added, seeing Data's blank look.

Data leapt through the door. 

Fanny and Wesley were snogging on the sofa.  Fanny was wearing an ill-fitting Starfleet uniform – Ensign Hucker's, of course – and Wesley, thank the stars, still had his trousers on. Things did not seem to have progressed beyond danger point; Wesley's youthful shyness had saved him from a fate worse than death. 

As soon as they saw Data, they sprang apart like guilty teenagers (which, of course, Wesley was). 

"Data," cried Wesley, blushing a deep puce, "Gee, for a moment there I thought you were my Mom. Hey, put that down – Fanny really doesn't mean any harm, - she says…."

But Fanny had seen Data's phaser, and in an instant whipped out Hucker's stolen weapon from under her tunic and held it to Wesley's head.

"Drop that, or the boy gets it," she spat at Data. Wesley's blush faded to white and Data slowly backed away.

(end of chapter 5)


	6. Trapped!

A Perfect Mate 

The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons. If you have stuck with me this far, thank you.

Chapter 6: Trapped! 

Zsuza put a hand on Data's arm and drew him back through the doorway out of Fanny's line of vision.

            "I think I know how to handle this," she whispered. "We need to find a way to disable her. Just follow my lead. You'll have to lie, though."

            He shot her a look of alarm as she said aloud, "Fanny, dear, you remember me? The – er – the doctor. Fanny, there's been a terrible mistake. It's not that boy you're meant to be looking for. It's this one here."

            "Shut up, fat bitch," replied Fanny.

            "Shit, I forgot," hissed Zsuza. "She only responds to male commands. You tell her, Data."

            She saw Data's Adam's apple quiver as he swallowed hard.

            "Fanny," he said, his voice suddenly more tremulous than usual, "apparently you have been sent to…to please me."

            "Attaboy," whispered Zsuza.

 "You?" Fanny sounded disappointed and looked at Wesley. "I am a gift to the white-faced one?"

Fortunately Wesley was smart enough to catch Zsuza's vigorous nodding over Data's shoulder, and he nodded warmly in assent. 

"Yes, he has been looking forward to being pleasured by you," said Zsuza brightly, and with a forefinger in the small of his back she prodded an unwilling Data forwards into the lounge, motioning to him to keep his phaser out of sight.

To her horror, Data suddenly collapsed in a heap at her feet. 

Zsuza looked down at the incapacitated android in terror and Wesley screamed. 

 "You hit his off-switch!" the boy wailed.

Fanny, however, kept the business end of her phaser pressed against Wesley's temple as she rose to her feet.

"You get over here, fat cow," she said to Zsuza. "Sit on the couch next to the baby. And hand me that phaser."

Zsuza complied. Clutching a phaser in each hand and keeping them aimed at the two humans, Fanny began sashaying backwards out of the room, giving Data's body a vicious though pointless kick as she went. Then her fluttering blue eyes caught sight of his commbadge, bent down and tugged it off his olive-green tunic. She placed the commbadge between her tiny, pearly white teeth and crunched it in two, then tossed the useless pieces on the floor. 

Everything had gone wrong. Zsuza's mind raced.

"Fanny," she said desperately, as the blonde reached the door, and taking care not to express a direct command, "if you are to – to fulfil your obligations to Lt. Commander Data, surely you should reactivate him?"

Fanny stopped dead in the doorway, turned round and looked dumbly at Zsuza with her over-ripe mouth hanging open. She was clearly divided between two conflicting, powerful programs. Her self-defence program told her to leave the Starfleet Officer lying on the floor, but her overriding "revenge" program was telling her No, get him reactivated and then you can get on with the job you have been sent to do.

"OK, wake him up," she snapped sulkily. "But you two stay right where you are."

"I think I know how to switch him on again," said Wesley. Watching Fanny's disagreeably casual handling of the two phasers out of the corner of his eye, the boy crawled over the floor to where Data lay and felt with his fingers under the android's tunic.  As if by magic, Data jerked back into life and leapt to his feet, taking in the situation in a flash.

"It was my fault," wailed Zsuza. "I didn't know about the off-switch."

"Shaddap, fat ugly bitch," snapped Fanny, "The kid gets back on the couch. You, bitch, close the door." 

Trembling, Zsuza got up, closed the door into the hallway and was motioned with a flick of the phaser back to the couch, where she instinctively put an arm around the terrified Wesley's shoulders.

Taking off one of her ear-rings, Fanny did something to the door control which Zsuza could not quite see, but which made a grating sound. Zsuza was certain she had jammed it. They were trapped.

Juggling the phasers to one hand and keeping both aimed at her prisoners, Fanny stripped off the Starfleet uniform with the dexterity of an experienced artiste and kicked it aside. Swinging her hips, she sauntered over to Data, and pressed herself against his body. He had not forgotten his estimate of her strength based on the state of Zsuza's laboratory and discarded the idea of wrestling her to the ground. There was the danger of phaser fire in a small space to be considered, too.

"Now, honey," Fanny breathed, switching back to her little-girl voice, " it's just you and me. And you know something? You really shouldn't believe what they say about me. I'm not a bad girl. I am only here to show you a really good time," she said, ruffling his hair with the hand that was not holding the phasers. "All you have to do is tell me exactly what you like and darlin', I'll do it."

And with exquisite tenderness she began licking his ear. Keeping the phasers trained on Zsuza and Wesley, with astonishing gracefulness she raised one preternaturally long leg into the air and wrapped it sensuously around Data's body.

To Zsuza's horror, Data seemed entranced. He clutched Fanny's buttocks, pressing her deadly pussy to him, and locked his lips to hers in a long, deep kiss.

Bastard, thought Zsuza. You don't need to kiss her. Just get your fingers up her and switch her off, for goodness' sake.

"Let me tell you what I would really, really like to do to you," she heard Data murmur in Fanny's ear.

"Look away, Wesley," whispered Zsuza. "Your mother won't want you watching this."

"Mmm, tell me," purred Fanny, wriggling excitedly against the front of Data's trousers. Data's kiss had kicked her pleasure-providing program into top gear and she was raring to go.

"I would like more than anything else in the world right now to…"

"What, honey?" Fanny began to unbutton  the top of his uniform. 

"To teach you to play chess."

Wesley's eyes widened even further than they had already. Zsuza blinked, confused. So Data could tell a lie after all!

"Chess?" Fanny frowned and pouted. "Honey, I thought I knew every kink a man could desire but this is a new one on me. I don't know how to play chess."

"It's a really cool game," piped up Wesley. "I have a set here if you'll let me go fetch it."

Fanny looked uncertain; her self-defence mechanism was looking for a trap, but it was not smart enough to spot it. She shrugged and Wesley produced his chess board and tournament-standard Staunton set – a birthday present from Data himself – from a drawer in the sideboard.

"Would you like me to set the game up?"

But Fanny's self-defence mechanism was not going to allow that. She grabbed the board and set from Wesley with uncanny speed. 

"You stay exactly where you are, kid. Me and my man here, we're going in the bedroom."

And before Data could protest, she had pushed him with alarming strength across the lounge, through Dr Crusher's bedroom door. The door slashed shut and Zsuza heard it locking, then the same grating noise, signalling that Fanny had done her ear-ring trick again.

Data was on his own now.

(end of chapter 6)


	7. Sacrifice

A perfect mate Chapter 7 Sacrifice 

Counsellor Troi and Commander Riker were helping the 190cm Klingon to his feet, a gallant task even for two normal people,  and  Herculean  when one of them is a 165cm woman of delicate build. But as soon as his ears caught an unusual bleep issuing from the security console, Worf rallied himself and leaped to his station like a tiger.

 "Didn't you hear that? It means somebody's commbadge has been destroyed," he growled. Worf may have just woken to find himself lying on the floor being tended by a slender half-Betazoid , but his security training was not going to let him down any more today. He was sure of that.

"It's Data's, sir," he reported, analysing the signal. " Coming from Dr Crusher's living quarters. The signal indicates that the commbadge has been snapped in two by something of impressive strength."

"Let's hope she hasn't snapped off anything else of Data's," said Riker grimly, evincing an appalled glance from Worf, whose colour began to drain away again.  
"Or of Wesley's," whispered Deanna. 

There was an unpleasant pause before Worf added, "The commpad in the Crusher family quarters has been disabled."

As one, they all had the same thought. Dr Crusher was busy performing her emergency surgery on the wretched Ensign Hucker. Wesley was supposed to have been staying safe and sound in his room. But if Data had met with an attacker in the Crushers' quarters, then...

"Get the main search team in there right now," barked Picard. "Number One, get down there too. Lieutenant Worf -"

"Captain," said Deanna gently, "perhaps Worf ought to stay here to monitor...any signals from Data or from the animatronic machine....or something."  
Picard caught her eye and registered its pleading expression.

"Good idea, Counsellor. Worf, you are far too valuable to be allowed off the bridge right now...Commander Riker, gather up a team and for heaven's sake, don't let anything happen to that boy.

"Or I'll never hear the end of it," he muttered to himself as his officers sped from the room.

………………………………………………………………………….

"And last but by no means  least, Fanny, this is the king. Your sole objective is to threaten to take him."

"You mean, I fuck him?" 

Fanny picked up the carved wooden piece and examined it.

"He's too tiny," she said. "I wouldn't be able to get a purchase. Do I break him in two or something?"

"No, it is not like that. You just have to threaten to take him with another piece by placing one of your pieces in such a situation that a subsequent move, in accordance with the differentiated moves I have just shown you, would enable it to land on the king's square….Look, I'll set the board up and we can have a practice game."

Fanny's bottom lip stuck out. She slumped onto one of Dr Crusher's boudoir chairs with her tiny, pointed chin resting on her slender hand, as Data began to busy himself with the pieces. 

"I am going to make this very simple for you, Fanny. I am going to play both black and white, and you just sit and watch the game."

"Can't I watch sitting on your lap?"

Data gave her a patient look.

"Very well, Fanny." 

Looking a little more interested, Fanny got up and wiggled over to Data, who was sitting in Dr Crusher's armchair. She poured herself into his lap and began running her fingers hopefully over him.

Data extracted her fingers from inside his waistband and gently held her hand in his. She looked desperately disappointed.

"Now watch this carefully, Fanny. To help you to concentrate, I shall let you move the pieces yourself. Can you remember which square is which?"

"Gee, I don't know." Fanny frowned again. 

"Do not worry, I shall guide your hand. Let us start with a classic Sicilian defence. 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 a6 5 Nc3 Nc6 6 Be3 Nf6 7 Bd3 d5 8 exd5 exd5. Fanny, you will observe that Black does not play 8….Nxd5 which would end up giving White an obvious advantage. 

"Please leave my zipper alone, Fanny, or I shall be forced to restrain your arms behind your back. Good girl.

"So. I think White now plays 9 0-0 Bd6 10 Nxc6 bxC6 11 Bd4 0-0; Wait, I wonder if maybe White should have played 10 a3 followed by 11 N/B3-c2 and 12 Qf3? Perhaps that would have been more promising. But I must not bend the rules against myself, must I?"

Fanny shook her head dumbly. A glazed expression was already passing over her lovely face.

Data smiled sadly at her and considered the board. 

"White is going to play 12 Qf3 – just to make it more exciting really. Of course, a more accurate move would be 12 a3. But I have a feeling we are going to let Black have the advantage in this game, do you not?

"12….Be6 13 Rfe1 c5 14 Bxf6 Qxf6 15 Qxf6 gxf6. That has removed the queens. Zsuza always says she enjoys what she calls their 'faggy handbag fight'."

"Who's Zsuza?" Fanny asked, suddenly more alert. Data regarded her critically, as though something had gone wrong in his plans. 

"A friend. So we move to 16 Rad1 Rfd8 17 Be2 Rab8 18 b3 c4 19 Nxd5!

"Please note, Fanny, the enterprising exchange sacrifice. This is the best way to cope with the threat of 19….Bg4."

The glazed expression had returned to Fanny's face and her fingers worked more slowly in their attempts to get inside Data's uniform. She curled up against his chest, gazing alternately up at his face and down at the board as he talked.

"Black plays 19….bd5 instead; 20 Rxd5 Bxh2+: Look, Fanny, check! This is becoming exciting. 21 Kxh2 Rxd5 22 Bxc4 Rd2!(Of course, if 22…Rd6 23 Re7! But now if 23 Re7 it is heading for check, Fanny, check! and Black has some winning chances in hand. Very well, Fanny, I shall kiss you once but I think you will agree this is getting very intriguing.) 23 Bxa6 Rxc2 24 Re2 Rxe2 25 Bxe2 Rd8 26 a4! What do you think of that, my dear? …Rd2 27 Bc4 Ra2 28 Kg3 Kf8 29 Kf3 Ke7. The game is afoot!"

Fanny's fingers lay limply in his lap. Taking her delicate chin in his hand and tilting her head gently backwards, he saw that her eyes were no longer focussing but were rolling in their sockets.

"Data," she said in a slurred voice.

"Yes, my dear?"

"Not…very….bright…."

"No, Fanny, I am sure you can understand this. Concentrate. Please, Fanny. I so, so much want you to understand this."

Her head flopped heavily onto his chest.

"Fanny," said Data urgently, "your function is to disable men's sexuality in return for a few moments of pleasure. But I, Fanny – I would willingly delete my entire sexuality program if only you were able to understand this game. I would gladly – happily - embrace the fate which human men seem to dread, if only you could try to understand this game."

Fanny did not answer, but lay quite still with her tousled blonde head resting against Data's chest and her eyes closed. He rested his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes too, as if in prayer.

Five minutes later, there was a crash as Riker and his team burst through the bedroom door. 

The men stared at their android seated in Dr Crusher's armchair. Enfolded and apparently sleeping in his arms was a fabulously gorgeous blonde girl, modestly wrapped in one of Dr Crusher's best bed-sheets. A lace lilac thong lay, discarded and torn, beside the chessboard.

"She is dead, Commander," said Data.

(end of chapter 7)

To find out who wins, go to:


	8. Truth and White Lies

A Perfect Mate 

_The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons. If you have stuck with me this far, thank you._

Chapter 8 Truth and White Lies 

"…then, as soon as I was certain from her appearance, being one of complete immobility, that her programming had suffered a fatal exception and had automatically shut down, I simply…turned her upside down, removed the obstructing item of clothing and – performed the necessary disabling routine. With my right middle finger," Data added, noticing the expectant expressions around the conference table. "I may be only an android, but I am not a necrophiliac."

He gave a donnish, wintry little smile, hoping against hope that he might at last have made a joke. Nobody laughed.

"Nicely done, Mr Data," purred Captain Picard. "I really don't know what we would do without you." 

 "You literally bored her to death," said Riker in awe. "This has to be some kind of record in the history of dating."

 "It is true that a female student at Starfleet Academy once accused me of having that ability," concurred Data. "At the time I thought it was only a figure of speech. I see now I have proved myself wrong."

He looked around hopefully, wondering again if he might have made a joke. Again, nobody laughed.

 "So!" Picard wanted to move on. "Now that the thing is under lock and key in a secure laboratory, all that remains is for Dr Androva here to assist us in dismantling the thing thoroughly and – please – quickly. Then it can be shipped out to – well, any suggestions?"

"The nearest Ferengi trading post? As a goodwill gift?" 

"Number One. I am surprised at you. That was a frivolous suggestion."

A smile played around the Captain's lips.

"Delightful idea, though…."

"Dr Androva's university surely would appreciate it as an addition to their museum," suggested Data. 

"Yes please!" said Zsuza, glad to be acknowledged as part of the conference. "And I need an excuse to get back home at the end of next month."

Data looked at her curiously.

"Perhaps we can move onto the next problem, Captain," said Counsellor Troi, "which is the psychological effect of this incident on the crew. I have a very full schedule of counselling ahead of me. I may need to request some peripatetic counsellors to come on board to back me up."

"Thank you, Counsellor, I was just coming to that, and of course you must have all the help you need – which reminds me, where is Lieutenant Worf?"

"I have ordered him to lie down in his quarters," said Dr Crusher. "He's very…upset."

Picard frowned. 

"It wasn't his fault. I hope he realises that?"

"You know Worf," said Deanna sadly. "All the counselling in the world would not wipe away the fact that he was the only male on the bridge, possibly on the ship, who actually passed out at the thought of Fanny's – er – tactics. And as he has so recently taken over as chief of security – well, emotionally it is little short of a disaster, sir."

"Incidentally," said Dr Crusher, "I'd be grateful if the exact nature of Fanny's weaponry, as you put it, was kept a closely guarded secret from my son. I know you all think I'm over-protective but I do want him to have a healthy, happy relationship with a nice girl…. one day. Really, I do."

Picard raised his eyebrows and glanced round the table to a murmur of immediate acquiescence. 

Then he frowned in thought, tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair and looked out of the window.

"Worf was the only one, eh? I think we have our answer to our dear Security Chief's little problem staring us in the face."

………………………………………………………………………

"Why are you so interested in returning home quickly?" asked Data as he and Zsuza unlocked the secure laboratory in which Fanny was incarcerated. 

Zsuza had had just enough time to shower, change her clothes and grab a bite to eat before joining the tireless android in the task of dismantling Fanny according to proper archaeological methods. She was not planning to let anyone else near Fanny this time and if the thing was to end up in her own university's museum, she wanted to be in charge from now on.

"Oh, didn't I say? I've had a very, very exciting communication from home, Data. It came through while we were chasing Fanny, apparently. I've been asked to play on board 3 for my planet in the Delta Quadrant Chess Olympics!"

"That will be an honour," said Data. "And a pleasure for you," he added as an afterthought. 

"If I do well, Data, I may give up my academic career and do what I've always wanted – become a full time professional chess player. My parents will be furious, of course, They think I'll lead a rackety life, living out of a suitcase and being pawed by sweaty, cigar-chomping impresarios…."

Zsuza broke off to look at Data. He was standing in the middle of the lab, staring at Fanny. The exquisite creature was lying inert on the workbench, secured by cruel-looking black straps binding her round her slender waist, swan-like neck and impossibly delicate thighs.

"She is beautiful, isn't she?" said Zsuza, following his gaze. 

"Yes," he answered shortly. "Tell me about your chess tournament."

"It's my dream come true, Data. This is the tournament that could get me into the big time – into galactic chess. This is the big one. Oh, Data, I can't wait to get training!"

They set to work taking Fanny apart. It was a long, finicky  job. Every tiny component of Fanny's had to be numbered and logged on computer generated diagrams. In other words it was the kind of work Zsuza  enjoyed; it was also the kind of work which Data found highly appropriate to his many talents, requiring not only mental acuity and painstaking attention to detail but physical strength and dexterity, too.

"I think we shall find that she is programmed to submit to the desires of the man she belongs to until she has him where she wants him," theorised Zsuza as they  began opening up Fanny's chest cavity ("90DD*?" volunteered Data, the bosom expert), "What baffles me  is that you were able to lie to her."

"I do not know what you mean," said Data blankly. 

He reached his hand behind Fanny's back and gently released the tiny gilt catch which fastened her absurd little lace bra from its moorings. Slowly, carefully (in accordance with proper archaeological procedure) he drew the filmy lace fragment away from her aggressively pert breasts (now beginning to sag a little due east and west) and reverently laid it to one side.

"Data, you know what I mean. In the Crushers' quarters! You told her your dearest wish was to teach her to play chess. But if you don't mind me saying, from where I was sitting it looked as though your dearest wish was far removed from playing chess with her. And I thought you were incapable of telling an untruth."

There was a pause as Data carefully detached an optic fibre cable from inside Fanny's rib cage and laid it on the second work bench, where Zsuza was making image recordings of every detail. As he lifted it into the air, it sparkled under the lab lights, and he watched its bright inner surfaces glitter for a moment before he spoke.

"It was indeed my dearest wish to teach her chess. But your intuition has told you correctly that my wishes towards Fanny were…more complex than that."

"I'm sorry – I don't…"

"Zsuza, I still harboured a hope that Fanny might be re-programmable so as to become a true partner for me – not only a sexual partner, but a companion, too."

"She would have needed a certain amount of - of emergency dental work," put in Zsuza. They both glanced towards the lower half of Fanny's body, where the vicious vagina still lay hidden in its veil of lace, soft pubic hair and simulated flesh. 

Data looked at Fanny's inert face. The blue eyes were wide open, gazing peacefully up at the ceiling. The golden hair lay like a tangled cloud around her head.

"I would have worked on her myself, making all the physical changes necessary to render her fit for human society. But I also knew that for that – my dearest wish - to happen," he continued, absent-mindedly stroking the blonde hair, "she would need to be equipped with an ability to learn complex processes. 

"In other words, I knew that if she could learn to play chess, I could have one day turned her into a perfect mate for me. Or as near perfect as I could ever hope to find."

He ran his fingers through the hair, combing out the tangles and smoothing each lock as he spoke. Something in his voice made Zsuza pause and look up from her work.

 "But," he continued very quietly, "I also knew that if she turned out to be too primitive to handle the task of learning chess, then it was likely that the effort would overload her circuitry – something that could never happen to me – and possibly even wipe it for ever."

"You knew it might save her – or kill her," whispered Zsuza. 

"And if you thought I felt desire for her, Zsuza, then you are right. At that moment when she kissed me I felt a profound need to possess her, to form her, to recreate her in a less savage form. I felt in myself a requirement for procreation that went above and beyond, I think, the human mating instinct. 

"For she was not only my mate but potentially my protégé, my child, the apple of my eye, or whatever expression you prefer to signify a beloved offspring or offspring-substitute."

"You are not only Pinocchio; you wanted to be Pygmalion, too," said Zsuza gently, more to herself than to Data. 

"But," she continued less gently, "Fanny was too dumb to cope with you."

"You could express it like that." The humanity had drained from his voice; was it simple androidishness, or was it a deliberate withdrawal of intimacy at the bluntness of Zsuza's words? 

As gently as if she had been a living – or recently living – woman, Data reached out his fingers and closed Fanny's eyes so that the sooty lashes lay on the peachy cheeks in an expression of perfect peace. 

Zsuza, unable to think of anything to say, turned back to her workbench where she was cataloguing Fanny's parts. A few minutes later, Data's commbadge – just sent in from the ship's stores – gave its little chirrup. 

Zsuza looked around to see Data suddenly straightening up, as though he had been bending over Fanny; he might have been examining her facial construction more closely.

 Or he might have been kissing the automaton's lifeless lips. Zsuza would never know.

_People always talk about his lack of emotions, _she thought. _They never talk about his extraordinary capacity for compassion. If only the Wizard of Oz could give him a bran-new heart…he might discover that he has been human all this time._

The Captain's voice.

"Data. Dr Androva is with you?"

"Of course, Captain."

"Excellent. I want you both to listen carefully. I have a little…plan that may make life easier for a dear friend of ours."

…………………………………………………………………

Worf still looked doubtful. "Are you certain that the artificial life form's remote disabling force field failed to incapacitate anyone else on board, Captain?" 

"Absolutely not, Lieutenant. As I said, Mr Data and Dr Androva, who have just discovered the device hidden deep inside the creature, have informed me that it is basically a remarkable  hormone-tracking device - but can be used only once."

"?"

"Yes. Mr Data theorises that it is no more than a prototype. We can be confident that its design was never used, or considered inefficient, since no records exist of it ever being developed."

Worf looked interested.

Picard continued, "Apparently the 'Fanny' mechanism was able, thanks to this – er, as I said, remarkable - device, to seek out the location of the highest concentration of testosterone on the ship, lock in on a hormonal signal and disable its source. Unfortunately, it seems to have homed in on you. From your point of view it must have been like being hit by an interplanetary missile. Fascinating, don't you think?"

Worf thought about this for a bit.

"What would be the purpose of this device, Captain?" he asked doubtfully.

"Again, Data and Dr Androva have come up with a convincing theory. They suggest that Fanny's manufacturers were aware that an exceptionally warrior-like and courageous male would not find Fanny a threat, and would have no difficulty in overpowering her. Criminal masterminds always used to keep a large, strong bodyguard close by, you see. 

"Therefore, in order to ensure that the 'Fanny' mechanism could carry out its horrific task, it would be necessary to avoid encountering such a warrior-like individual until the weapon had been deployed against its target."

Worf looked appalled. 

 "An evil apparatus, Captain. A selective disabling field of this nature should be brought to the attention of Starfleet Command, in my opinion."

"Um…don't worry, Worf, old chap. Leave it to Dr Androva to make sure the thing is thoroughly investigated."

Worf's shoulders, which had been sagging noticeably for most of the day, returned to their usual ramrod straightness and he went back to his station. A few minutes later, however, he turned back to the Captain.

"A query, Captain. Do you think it possible that an artificial life form such as – er – Fanny could be made to resemble a – a _Klingon female?"_

"Certainly not, Worf. The idea is unthinkable."

"But, with respect, Sir…."

"Worf, Klingons are honourable beings, are they not?"

"Indeed they are, Sir!" responded Worf warmly.

"Well, can you imagine any Klingon trying to pull such a vile trick on another Klingon?"

"I cannot imagine such a dishonourable act, Sir!"

"There you are, then. Now put the matter right out of your head."

Worf looked profoundly relieved and went back to work with something close to a spring in his step. 

I wish I could feel half as comfortable myself, thought Picard. 

Deanna was going to need those back-up counsellors over the next few weeks. He hoped at least one or two of them would turn out to be good-looking.

(End of chapter 8)

  


* * *

* Centimetres, remember.


	9. Nobody's Perfect

_The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons. If you have stuck with me this far, thank you._

Chapter 9 Nobody's Perfect 

"Men are weird," said Zsuza.

"Keeping up this subterfuge is not going to be easy for me," Data announced.

"If Worf starts asking questions, all you have to do is look very busy, and say it's not your department. That's what every academic I know does, when asked a question about their research which they don't want to answer."

Data was working on Fanny's torso. "But if this supposed testosterone-seeking device actually existed," he said, "where do you think it would be situated?"

"Well," said Zsuza, "let's tell him it's situated where she keeps her brain." Zsuza pointed to Fanny's perfect little mons veneris, now exposed under the bright lab lamps.

Data looked baffled. 

"The human brain is normally situated in the….…"

"Joke, honey, joke."

As they worked on, the atmosphere of quiet, busy companionship reminded Data of their exploration of Zsuza's antique chess books. He also noticed that his companion was using Counsellor Troi's scarf to tie back her unruly auburn hair.

"Zsuza, you called me 'honey'. Is this significant?"

"No." 

Actually, Zsuza was not really listening to Data. An awful discovery had been creeping up on her for the past hour and she was feeling a cold, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was the type of discovery that every researcher dreads. 

She began to worry that she had seriously misattributed Fanny's origins. Fanny's construction was far too advanced for the date she had originally attributed to it. In other words, she had totally fucked up.

"Data," she said, "I am going to have to work on this a lot back home."

"Back home?"

"I need my dating apparatus."

"Dating?"

"Yes, for establishing Fanny's dates. Why do you keep repeating everything I say?"

"I am sorry. I seem to be repeating everything you say."

She looked more closely at him. He was engaged in removing Fanny's right leg now. They had decided to leave her head until last.

"What's the matter, Data?"

"I am just…..thinking," he said coolly.

Zsuza threw down the sonic calibration tool she was holding. 

"You think I've screwed up, too, don't you," she said fiercely. He looked up, his alert system activated by the anger in her voice. 

"Zsuza, what are you talking about?"

"If only I had been given a chance to supervise opening her box. If only I had had first crack at her, if I had not been in such a hurry to activate her…."

"….and if she had not rendered you unconscious," put in Data.

"….we might have been able to get her working in a harmless fashion. Then she could really have been a companion for you; or at least a feather in my academic cap. Oh, Data, I feel so sorry. I am useless."

Data pointed to the circuits laid out on Zsuza's workbench.

"Why should I want a mate who cannot even master the rules of chess?" he said. "Please do not blame yourself. Others made mistakes. I, for example, was with you in your quarters when Wesley persuaded the Captain, against his better judgement, I suspect, to beam Fanny aboard. Had I been on the bridge I might have counselled against it."

"I hope you would never do that, Data; every piece of space junk is a piece of history. We are learning from Fanny. Please think of that next time you see a rusty old ship floating in space!"

"Very well, I accept that point. But I should have been there. Commander Riker, an outstanding officer, was over-hasty in unpackaging Fanny, which we now know not only compromised the archaeological value of the find but also enabled her to lock on Wesley as her target. 

"Wesley allowed her in his quarters against the express instructions of his mother because, being young and at a sexually very curious age, he was easily persuaded that Fanny  was harmless. 

"It is even conceivable that Dr Crusher was in error in omitting to spell out to Wesley the nature of Fanny's attack mechanism; it is possible that her powerful maternal feelings have created a taboo between her and Wesley concerning the open discussion of sexual function. I am theorising, of course.

"In short, Zsuza, no one person is to blame. And Ensign Hucker ought to have known better."

"Thank you, Data."

By now Fanny's principal logistic circuits had been exposed. They were a sorry sight. Most of them had simply melted irreversibly into useless lumps. The effort of learning to play chess had truly killed her.

"She would not have made a true permanent mate for me. That I have to accept," said Data firmly.

"I hate to say 'I told you so' but – I did. Anyway, what's wrong with me, eh? We were getting on fine in my room before Fanny turned up."

 "Zsuza, I realise that I failed to complete the sexual sequence you requested. I was inadequate. I do not expect you to wish me to repeat the attempt."

"Don't be silly. Your boss called. Are you saying you didn't like being with me, Data?" Zsuza felt a lump in her throat. Was she so unattractive that even an android programmed to please was finding excuses to turn her down?

"Zsuza," said Data gravely, "you must understand. I do not have feelings of love or hate. Even if I accessed my sexuality program for you night and day, you and I can never have a proper relationship. A human female needs a man who can love her – and I do not feel love. "

"But, Data, who knows how you might develop, over time?"

Data cocked his head on one side, a movement which Zsuza now knew signalled that he was deeply troubled by a conundrum.

"Zsuza, my past is very mysterious."

"I forgive your past."

"I have an evil brother – he may still be functional, for all I know."

Zsuza snorted. "Family! You think you have an evil brother? You should meet my mother."

Data sighed.

"I can never have children."

"We can adopt."

"Zsuza! I am - an android!"

"Nobody's perfect!"

For a long time neither said anything while Data adjusted the lighting in the lab and Zsuza re-checked the categorisation of Fanny's motor system. Then the android suddenly turned to her and said, "But Zsuza, what about your chess tournament?"

Ah, now he had put his pale finger on it. It had been in the back of her mind all the time; that brilliant chess career she so longed to grasp with both hands.

 "Yes, Data. You're right, as usual. The real reason you and I cannot have the kind of traditional relationship you have in mind is nothing to do with you being an android, and me being a woman. That's all hooey."

"Hooey?"

"Hogwash. No, the real reason you and I cannot be a permanent item is very, very simple. It is that you are a Starfleet officer and I am a nutcase chess player. 

"I cannot live without competitive chess any more than you could live without Starfleet. Chess means travelling budget class to  tournaments all over the galaxy and living on coffee, cigarette smoke and late-night snacks from some very dubious sources. Chess does not mean sitting in the saucer section of the Enterprise all day playing online games, inbetween minding other people's babies. No thanks. Starfleet is your life, and chess is my life. And what I really love about you, Data, is that I think you saw that even before I did."

His earnest eyes creased with concern. 

"Are you upset?" he asked.

"No. Now let's get on. We still have a lot to do here and I don't want to go to bed until it is done."

They worked on. They worked well together. They each had a fondness for exactitude and detail, and Zsuza's technical knowledge and broad frame of reference impressed Data. He realised that working with her felt more like working with his good friend, Geordi LaForge, than anything else.

But it was getting late. Zsuza had been awake for over 23 hours and despite her earlier boast to Data, she found it hard to keep her eyes open. Gradually, as they worked on, exchanging only brief shorthand snippets of conversation that would have been incomprehensible to anyone walking into the room, she felt her eyelids becoming unbearably heavy and her head began to sink. 

Just a little snooze, perhaps, to freshen up her mind.

She woke up lying sprawled on her side on a spare workbench at the side of the lab, next to Fanny. The first thing she saw was Data, standing between the two benches, apparently motionless between his two helpless females - the sleeper and the doll.

 "Data? What time is it?"

Glancing back down at Fanny – by now only a shell - then at Zsuza, he seemed to be making a mental comparison.

"Zero two fifty four point three eight. You fell asleep with your face on the desk," he said, and came over to help her up. "I thought it best to put you somewhere where you could sleep more comfortably without being disoriented when you woke."

Zsuza sat up and stretched. Finding herself lying defenceless on a lab bench, alongside the empty would-be android, with the real android wielding a sonic driver over the two of them was curiously unnerving.  Apart from which, she hoped she had not been snoring.

The bench was hard and she felt stiff.

"My leg's gone to sleep," she remarked with a yawn. 

Bafflement.

"I mean, it's got pins and needles," she added.

More bafflement.

"My leg is numb. The circulation has been cut off because I've been lying on it," she finally managed to explain. She tried to put her weight on it and gave a cry of discomfort.

"I can't walk on it," she said.

Data put down his sonic driver. 

"Let me carry you to bed," he said. "The work is finished here."

"Finished! Thank you, Data, but I really should have been…." The idea of him carrying her to bed was more than delightful; but another stab of guilt hit her at the thought that she had left him to finish her work.

"Do not worry, Zsuza. I have familiarised myself with your methods and have reproduced your cataloguing system exactly. Each item is numbered, imaged from all angles and packed safely for transport. 

"All that remains is for me to get you into bed."

Zsuza smiled at the innocence of his choice of words. The last man whom she had heard use that expression was, as it happened, the last man to 'throw' a game of chess to her to gain her confidence; in his case it had been all part of the seduction routine, part of the cruel game of cat and mouse and sexual politics which Zsuza wanted to leave behind her for ever. The light fell on that comical tilted nose and she longed again to snuggle up to him. 

After locking down the lab equipment and leaving the lab computer on standby, Data lifted Zsuza effortlessly from where she was still perched on the spare lab bench. 

"Put your arms around my neck," he said softly. Slim as he was, she found it very easy to lean her head into his shoulder.

"You cannot sleep in your quarters while those crates are there," he said. "It is out of the question. If the ship were to become subject to any kind of disturbance or force field you could be crushed."

"But…"

"I will not allow you to sleep there," he repeated and set her down for a moment to wag a schoolmasterly finger. " May I offer you my quarters instead?"

Her heart skipped a beat.

"Thank you, Data. I am sure I will be very, very safe in your quarters. Very safe indeed."

And before she could stop herself (not that she tried very hard) she gently kissed his mouth.

"Would you be able to…to see a way to…to accessing your sexuality program again for me?" she whispered.

Her answer was another, much longer and increasingly urgent kiss.

Not many crew were about at that time of night; it was a quiet period and the ship's default policy of observing the normal rhythms of a 24 hour day as far as possible was in place. If an emergency, or the merest hint of one, had occurred, the corridors and turbolifts would have instantly become crowded with scurrying men and women – but as it was, only a few night crew were treated to the sight of their soulless android walking through the ship carrying in his arms a curvaceous young woman with deplorably messy hair, stopping every few metres to kiss her face, her neck, her breasts and her eyes.

Zsuza had wondered earlier that day what making love with the android would be like. As with her archaeological theories, some of her guesses were right, and some wrong.

She had not expected the soft trueness of his skin or the movement of what looked like real muscles beneath the skin. She certainly had not expected the sprinkling of black-brown chest hair; and when she discovered that she could tousle his hair exactly like any man's, she felt curiously delighted, as it proved to her that he must spend a lot of time keeping it so neat.

Their earlier, brief encounter had led her to expect gentleness and sureness of touch. The way he went on kissing her with grave, attentive care on every part of her body that wanted to be kissed – that, too, she had guessed at, and hoped for. But the naturalness of his genitals, the perfect hard-on-the-inside, soft-on-the-outside texture of his erect penis - and the fact that he was circumcised - were still a surprise. 

The way he seemed to know exactly how long to tease her yearning clitoris with his tongue and fingers was a surprise. Where had he learned this? The way her vagina was virtually pleading for him to fill it when he slowly entered her was only to be expected. But the way his body trembled – very, very slightly - in her arms; the way his goodness, his kindness and his honest offering to her of his manhood made her heart melt at the same time as her loins; the way he began with infinite care and confidence, with thrusts never too hurried until they needed to be, to lead her to the most delicious, warm, rippling, top-to-toe orgasm she had ever known, the way he suddenly seized her face between his hands and thrust his tongue into her mouth just as she climaxed – as he climaxed too, it seemed - could only be….. –

"What a surprise," she said aloud after a few minutes, as he rolled over to take his weight off her body.

"Yes," he said, in a completely normal voice, as though agreeing about the weather. "I too am – quite surprised."

The woman, too sleepy to give this remark much thought, wriggled round to look at the android, and stroked his nose. 

"Who installed your sexuality program, darling?" she murmured.

"A man called Dr Noonian Soong," he replied.

"Lucky old Mrs Soong," said the woman, and went straight to sleep.

(end of chapter 9)


	10. Going Boldly

A Perfect Mate 

_The characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation are the property of Paramount, and the other people they are property of, and they certainly aren't mine. This story is written entirely for amusement and not for profit. No references are intended to any actors portraying these fictional characters or to any other living persons. If you have stuck with me this far, thank you._

Chapter 10 Going Boldly 

"I could probably have used my penis to deactivate her immediately, since it is sturdier than a human male's, " Data confided to Zsuza as they sat back on the couch in Data's quarters, listening to one of Beethoven's late quartets.

Waking up in Data's quarters had been awful. It was lovely to find Data leaning over her and gently combing out the tangles in her hair with his fingers, but otherwise it was like waking up in a furniture store. Everything was for show. There was no toilet paper, not even anything to blow your nose on, and nothing to drink a glass of water from. Even the replicator did not work properly because Data, not yet a cat owner, hardly ever used it.

Zsuza had dispatched Data down to her quarters to fetch a change of clothing and her morning necessaries. Of course, he came back minutes later bearing half her entire wardrobe in his arms, since he had been uncertain as to what she would want to wear; and he had left behind the most essential item, her face cream, because it had been sitting on the bathroom counter and was not in the sponge bag. 

So it was only after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, and only after Data had gallantly insisted on completely dismantling and reassembling the control panel of the replicator to get it working again – he flatly refused to allow Zsuza to pop down the corridor and beg a cup of coffee from a neighbour on the grounds that it was "unseemly" -  that Zsuza at last felt she could face some breakfast with her new lover. 

"But, as I implied in my briefing to the Captain,  I was aware that there were certain – delicate - questions of taste arising from that solution," continued Data, "so I decided to use my fingers. They are, after all, slightly more dexterous."

Zsuza gulped and narrowly missed spilling her coffee. "Only _slightly_ more? You mean your – you mean you can - "

"Oh, yes, it is quite manoeuvrable. With three speeds. The program I utilised last night is a basic introductory routine. Oh, and there is also a vibrate option.  I have been told that it 'tickles', whatever that means."

There was a stunned pause while Zsuza mulled over the implications of this information. It certainly explained some things about last night.

"Data," she began slowly, snuggling up beside him on the couch, "do you have any leave owing?"

"Since I take very few holidays, and since the Captain is rarely willing to let me leave the ship except as part of an away team, I have twenty-one months and 24 days leave owing, Zsuza. Why do you wish to know?"

"Well, with this tournament coming up in a month's time I feel I need a good rest somewhere with pleasant countryside, fresh air and a king-size bed - somewhere I can get into training…and I wonder if you could join me – as my coach?"

His guileless, golden eyes widened, his head gave a bird-like tilt. "If the Captain can release me, playing chess with you for an entire month would be most intriguing, Zsuza."

"You might even catch a tan," Zsuza giggled. 

A blank look. Never mind, she thought.

"Seriously, Data, I really think he owes you a month's leave. That Captain of yours might appreciate you a bit more if you took your holidays, you know."

"Appreciate me?" The quizzical look, his head tilted to one side.

"And, Data, you don't really need to work double shifts ALL the time. Take time off now and again to socialise. Get about a bit. You're worth it. But – but Data, don't tell the other men on the Enterprise about your three speeds and your vibrate option. They could get very jealous."

Data looked even more thoughtful than ever. 

"Perhaps we could take some of your collection of 'books' with us," he suggested. "For when we are not playing chess."

"Great idea."

"And I warn you that you may well lose every game you play. I have been developing some interesting sub-routines to counter your particular playing style. I shall not be throwing games any more."

"That's what I'm counting on, Data. And I know a dear little green planet we can go to. It's not too far from here…." 

She snuggled against his shoulder hopefully, but Data still seemed to be worrying over something. 

"Zsuza," he said quietly, "I have made a very foolish mistake."

"What do you mean, Data?"

"For a moment, I thought that you wanted to go on vacation with me at least partly because my sexuality program was – was pleasing to you, but you have not mentioned it at all since last night. Indeed, as soon as I completed it, you went to sleep. I feel you are making it very clear, using the fascinating human trait called 'tact', that you want my company solely as a chess coach but not for recreational sexual activity.

"And now you advance the proposition that aspects of my sexuality program might make men jealous of me, an emotion I cannot understand, but know to be dangerous, particularly for a person with an 'off' switch. 

"In your opinion, Zsuza, should I just delete this sexuality program altogether? If an interesting, intelligent and aesthetically appropriate woman such as yourself is not interested in obtaining pleasure from it, I cannot see any reason to keep it."

She put down her coffee cup and stood up. For a moment she considered Data, sitting before her on the couch staring disconsolately at nothing, and marvelled that even android males should so obviously need constant reassurance that they are hot as hell in the sack. If _that _did not prove, once and for all, that Data was essentially a man, she did not know what would.

She hiked up her skirt as far as her stocking tops, planted one knee on either side of his thighs so as to straddle his lap, and took the android's sweet, sad-clown face between her two hands. 

"Data," she said. "I am only going to say this once." 

His eyes darted away, and downwards. He had heard those words before.

"If -  you - delete the tiniest, - most infinitesimal - byte of - that program, my darling," she whispered, kissing his face at each word, and paying particular attention to his nose, "I swear I shall never, never play chess with you again. You're perfect the way you are.  Just perfect."

Just for a change, he said nothing, but continued to look dolefully up at her. Was there the faintest hint, deep in those golden eyes, of a twinkle? Zsuza suddenly remembered Geordi's words when Data had lost to her at blindfold chess.

"Data," she said with mock sternness, "You wouldn't be trying to get a girl to feel all sorry for you in the hope of a quick legover, would you, now?"

The sad, blank look again. But this time the twinkle behind it was definitely there…and went as far as the pale lips, which twisted into a slight, questioning smile.

And as she put a stop to the android's inscrutable smile with the longest, deepest, most sensual snog of her life, Zsuza reflected that this was going to be one hell of a chess vacation.

……………………

Epilogue 

The author acknowledges the use of some dialogue from the ST:TNG episode "The Neutral Zone". 

"Good to see you back, Mr Data," grinned Riker as Data bustled onto the bridge. "It's been a long month without you, especially since the Captain went off to this emergency conference. As you can see, we are basically hanging around here waiting for him to come back."

The ship's second officer flitted about at the science station, deftly surveying and recording the sensor readings. No one on board had quite the same rapport with the ship's computer as he did; no one was quite as fast at analysing the mass of information which continually flooded from it. 

In fact, he realised, he was probably as good at picking out which information was necessary as anyone else. Just because he also had the ability to remember all the rest of the facts to which he was exposed did not mean he was any less good at his job as the next officer. 

His ever-alert eye was caught by a flashing message on the science station console: "Lt Comm. Data Personal Communication…sender, Z.B. Androva, DSc, FEISTA*[1]". Out of Worf's line of vision, Data switched it to written format, planning to take a look at the video format later on in private. 

"_Hi, just a quick note to say I won my first game! Yesss! Am playing board 3 may move up to 2. Everything great, atmosphere amazing, 2 top Delta Quadrant teams have put out recruitment feelers,  yippee. Been interviewed by the Chess Channel! Stardom! Coach is good teacher but I've known better tee hee. Will send u games later and don't forget promise correspondence chess. Xxxxx Z."_

The vacation had been a complete success. Apart from that one difficult day near the end when Zsuza lost her temper with him, allegedly because of his repeated attempts to go into the toilet with her ("But, Zsuza, this is the one human function which is completely hidden from me. I need to observe it to complete my development. Surely, now we are so intimate - " "Data, GO AWAY."), everything had proceeded according to plan.

He reflected that her irrational behaviour on that particular occasion was probably connected with her anxiety about the tournament, perhaps also with her hormonal cycle, he added sagely, mentally congratulating himself on his sensitivity to women's problems. 

He had, perhaps, been slightly hasty in accusing her, through the keyhole of the bathroom door, of deliberately stunting his personal growth. 

(He had to raise his voice, naturally, to ensure she heard him above the sound of running taps, and had certainly not been "yelling at her through the door", an absurd assertion of Zsuza's which proved her temporary imbalance of mind).

But once she emerged, red-eyed and blotchy-faced, from the bathroom, the reconciliatory sexual subroutine Data had devised for her while sitting for two hours outside the door proved extremely successful, not to mention the chess game afterwards. The hotel had been very understanding about the broken ceramics. 

It was a little regrettable, also, that it was – apparently - not appropriate human social behaviour to describe interesting sexual experiments to one's male co-workers. At least, so Zsuza had insisted. ("But Commander Riker says…" "Never mind what he says, Data. You just carry on doing what you're good at, my sweet, and keep pretending 'It Never Happened'; I reckon you could keep every woman on the Enterprise very happy. Just never, never let the men find out. EVER.")

As he checked the ship's sensors, Data reflected that he had well and truly got the hang of sex. By the second day of the vacation, he had realised that as long as you remembered to make each session a bit different from the last, and provided you observed certain basic rules of engagement, sex was a straightforward and even fairly interesting activity. He still could not quite see why human males got so anxious about it.

But to be honest, he found playing chess with Zsuza considerably more rewarding than sex. So to avoid becoming bored of sex – Zsuza was intelligent enough to notice at once if he performed in a manner at all "robotic" - he invented a new game for himself. 

Half way through the third day of the holiday, Data had developed a habit of playing chess with Zsuza in his head while making love to her. A crucial factor of the game was that in these mental chess bouts, Zsuza, and no one else, should always be his opponent–  if he imagined playing any other opponent, he suspected that he would be guilty of a subtle form of infidelity. 

This limitation meant that his mental chess game had to remain within the parameters of her particular playing style. As an additional challenge, he tested his own ingenuity by varying his sexual routine to correspond with the chess game going on inside his head. 

In short, he had developed a system whereby he was preparing the strategic issues to be raised in Zsuza's next chess coaching session, while at the same time bringing her to a moaning, sobbing, melting climax, _by utilising parallel functions of the same cerebral process._ He was fucking her with a game of chess.

The cybernetic elegance of Data's new private game were highly gratifying to him. He found great satisfaction in the mathematical dexterity required to time things so that an orgasm rippled and quivered through Zsuza's delighted body at the exact moment when, in his mind, he was knocking over her king.

Moreover, Zsuza, declaring herself "royally fucked", invariably slept "like a log" afterwards, giving him plenty of time to explore the local sights at his own pace.

Yes, on the whole, the vacation had been an outstanding mission. 

So when an ancient, decaying space vessel was spotted in the ship's vicinity, and Commander Riker dismissed the idea of investigating it on the grounds that it was no more than "space debris", Data felt emboldened to speak up.

"Commander," he said, choosing a far less deferential tone that that he might have used to the Captain, "request permission to investigate this vehicle."

"Why, Data? It's derelict," said Riker. 

Data drew himself up. 

"It is a piece of history," he said, rather commandingly, he thought. "The opportunity to examine such an ancient vehicle does not come around very often. And as you pointed out, we do have the time."

Riker was about to remind Data of what had happened the last time space junk had been beamed aboard, but quickly remembered that part of the trouble had been caused by his own rather indecent haste to uncover Fanny's charms, so thought better of it. "Very well," he said, "But be prepared to beam back before the Captain returns." 

"Thank you, Sir."

"Lieutenant Worf, you go with him."

Worf looked more than pleased to be allowed off his leash for the morning.

On exiting the turbo-lift, the two officers ran straight into the ship's counsellor. 

"Good morning, Counsellor Troi," chirped Data as they passed. 

"Nice to see you back," Deanna replied, then caught her breath. 

There it was again! 

Gone almost in the instant it arrived, melting away like the scent of a rose on the breeze, that fleeting moment of emotion coming from an unaccustomed source. And once again, coming from Data! She was sure of it now. 

The feeling faded so quickly, she only just caught it: a separate whiff of emotion quite distinct from Worf's usual stifled aggression.  Even as she exchanged pleasantries with Data and Worf, the feeling vanished. But while it had been present, it was stronger, clearer and very, very different from the feeling she had sensed from Data that other day, long ago, when poor Tasha was alive. 

This feeling told her that here was someone who valued himself, who felt proud of his abilities and achievements and knew himself to be worthy of respect, even – though he did not know the meaning of it yet - of love.

Deanna smiled broadly as she put a name to the feeling. She shrewdly suspected that Data was quite unaware of it, but the Betazoid had no trouble in recognising it. 

It was happiness.

The end   


* * *

[1] Fellow of the Europa4 Institute of Scientific And Technological Archaeology


End file.
